MidReal Story
Social Climber's Deadly Tinder Game
Scenario: a girl doing whatever she can to climb up the social ladder found herself in a hopeless situation where she mysteriously become the target of an assassinator who approached her on Tinder.
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I received a message from a Tinder match.
It was a death threat.
I had no idea who sent it, but I was sure of one thing: they were serious.
They knew everything about me, and they were going to kill me at midnight.
I had only one choice: find out who they were and stop them before it was too late.
The clock was ticking, and I was running out of time.
My best friend Jake Thompson was the only one who could help me, but he had no idea what I’d gotten myself into.
He didn’t know about my secret life on Tinder or the fact that I’d been talking to his girlfriend behind his back.
If he found out, he’d never forgive me.
But I had no choice—I had to tell him everything and hope that he would help me before it was too late.
I received a message from a Tinder match at 6:00 PM on a Friday night.
It was a death threat: “I’m going to kill you at midnight.”
My heart raced as I read the message over and over again.
I’d gotten dozens of creepy messages on Tinder, but this was different.
This one was a threat.
“Who are you?”
I typed back, my hands trembling.
The sender was anonymous, but they knew everything about me.
They knew my name, where I worked, and that I was close to getting a promotion to associate editor at Socialite.
I felt a chill run down my spine.
How did they know all that?
It couldn’t be a prank.
I was going to die in six hours, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Panic set in, but I forced myself to calm down.
I needed to think clearly if I wanted to survive this.
I needed a plan.
Panic wouldn’t save me, but action might.
I took a deep breath and began to brainstorm.
Who could have sent the message?
It could have been anyone who had access to my phone, but that narrowed down the list of suspects.
None of my friends would ever do something like this—not even Sarah.
But what about the people I’d met on Tinder?
I’d gone out with dozens of guys over the past few months, but most of them had been forgettable.
There were a few who had been weird or creepy, but none of them had ever threatened me before.
Maybe one of them was trying to scare me, but why would they want me dead?
It didn’t make any sense.
As I sat there staring at my phone, one name came to mind: Jake.
He was the only person who knew about my secret life on Tinder, and he was also the only person who would be able to help me in this situation.
Jake was a law student at Yale, and he was brilliant.
He’d always been there for me when I needed him, and I knew he would drop everything to help me now.
But as I thought about telling him what had happened, a wave of guilt washed over me.
Not only had I been talking to his girlfriend behind his back, but I’d also gone out with her ex-boyfriend—a fact that Jake didn’t know yet.
If he found out that Sarah and I were still in touch, he’d never forgive me.
And if he found out that she was dating someone else, he’d be heartbroken.
But that didn’t matter now.
My life was on the line, and I needed all the help I could get.
I took a deep breath and dialed Jake’s number.
The call went straight to voicemail, and I cursed under my breath.
He must have been in class or studying at the library.
I sent him a text instead: “Hey, can you call me when you get a chance?I need to talk to you.”
As soon as I hit send, a new message appeared on my screen: “Don’t tell anyone.You have six hours.”
I stared at my phone in disbelief: “Don’t tell anyone.You have six hours.”
That was it—that was all they said before they stopped responding to my messages and blocked me on Tinder.
But those words were enough to send a chill down my spine.
It was a warning—or maybe a threat—but either way, it was clear that my life was in danger and that I needed to do something about it before it was too late.
The time on the message read 6:00 PM, which meant that I had exactly six hours to figure out who had sent it before they followed through on their promise to kill me at midnight.
My heart raced as I did the math in my head.
Six hours wasn’t much time to find a killer—even one who had left such an obvious digital trail behind them—but it was better than nothing.
And if I didn’t find them by then, it was game over for me.
My mind raced as I tried to come up with a plan of action.
Telling Jake was still my best option—he was the smartest person I knew, and he would be able to help me figure this out quickly and efficiently—but I couldn’t bring myself to do it yet.
Telling Jake that I was in danger was one thing, but telling him about my secret life on Tinder was something else entirely.
If I told him what I’d been doing behind his back for the past six months, he’d never look at me the same way again—and he’d probably never forgive me for it either.
I hadn’t meant to lie to him or keep secrets from him—it just sort of happened that way.
But it wasn’t an excuse, and I knew that I’d made a huge mistake by betraying his trust like this.
I’d always thought of myself as a good person—one who was honest and loyal—but now I wasn’t so sure anymore.
And if I wasn’t a good person, then what did that make me?
As I sat there lost in thought, another realization hit me: Sarah was the one who had sent the message on Tinder—the very first person I’d matched with on the app—so she must have known it was me all along!
As soon as I made the connection, everything started to fall into place: Sarah was the one who had sent the message; she was the one who wanted me dead; and she was the one who was going to be responsible for ruining Jake’s life—or even worse, ending mine!
The more I thought about it, the angrier and more frustrated I became.
How could she do this to us?
How could she be so jealous and manipulative?
And how could she be so evil?
And yet the biggest question of all was: How could I have ever trusted her?
It wasn’t a coincidence that I had received that threatening message from an unknown Tinder match; it was a calculated move by someone who knew I had been on Tinder for the past six months looking for love—and connections with other single women.
Which also meant that they must have known I had been stood up from a date earlier that day—as well as many other times before.
The realization made me feel sick to my stomach as I wondered how long they had been monitoring me and how much they knew about me.
I had done everything I could think of to hide my Tinder activities from prying eyes: I had set my profile to private so no one else could see it unless they were on Tinder themselves; I had only swiped right on girls that I liked; and I had even gone so far as to delete all of my messages with my matches on a regular basis in an attempt to cover my tracks.
But despite my best efforts, someone had still managed to find out about me and everything I had done on Tinder.
And now they wanted me dead.
As I thought back on all of my recent matches, none of them seemed capable of such malice.
So who was responsible for sending me that message?
And why did they want me dead?
I didn’t have the answers to those questions—and I wasn’t sure I wanted them either.
All I knew for sure was that the threat was real, and that if I didn’t do something about it soon, then I would be in serious trouble.
The thought scared me more than anything else.
I had considered calling the police or hiring a private investigator to look into it for me—but I knew that neither of those were the right answer.
The only way out of this was to find out who was behind the threat before midnight—and then deal with them myself.
The hardest part wasn’t deciding what to do next; it was deciding whether or not to tell Jake about it too.
I knew that he would want to help me—but I also knew that he wouldn’t approve of what I had been doing behind his back either.
And although I loved him like a brother, he wasn’t above making bad decisions when he was angry or upset.
It was the last thing I wanted—and yet I didn’t see any other way out of it either.
If Jake didn’t know what was happening, then he wouldn’t be able to help me—and if he couldn’t help me, then no one could.
But if he did know what was happening, then he might be able to figure out who was responsible for it too.
It wasn’t a risk I took lightly—but it was a risk I had to take nonetheless.
“Hey, Em,” Jake said as he walked into the room.
“I got your text—what’s going on?”
I hesitated for a moment, my heart racing and my palms sweating as I tried to figure out how best to tell him about it.
And then, before I lost my nerve, I blurted out: “Someone sent me a threatening message on Tinder today—and I don’t know what to do about it.”
The words felt like a confession—as if I was admitting my guilt for the first time, and in a way, maybe I was.
