Lakshmi Rengarajan wants you
to date your friends. (And your
coworkers. And your neighbors.)

Because dating isn’t just something single folks do. It’s the skill & craft of getting to know other people - yes your fellow humans - regardless of where that leads.

And we’re at risk of losing it forever. Dating might just be the single most important thing we rethink right now.

How to Date Humans is an antidote
for all the apps, reality shows
& terrible advice that turned
daters into users &
connecting into consuming.

“It’s easy to meet,
but harder to connect.”™

We’ve been sensing this shift in dating culture for years, but it’s never made us feel this disposable before. It’s no wonder we’ve started asking if it’s worth it to date humans at all.

It’s not you, it’s us.

There’s a reason it feels like the slow progress of affection we saw in 90’s romcoms is dying: it is.

We crave connection while every new technology shoves us in the opposite direction. And who can blame us? Tech has made our lives easier than ever.

But it’s also made us more transactional & less human than ever.

Here’s the good news: we can get off this train. We can jump-start the potentially dormant parts of our hearts. And we should. Because dating isn't a means to an end -- it's a lifelong skill.

We owe it to each other to date

“Romantic hope is one of the most
important things we can believe in right now.”

Resources & Inspiration

The human behind
How to Date Humans

Meet Lakshmi (luck-shmee)

Hi, I’m Lakshmi.

I’ve spent the past 15 years in the weeds of dating culture, being “productively obsessed” with building solutions that help people actually connect. Now, I’m trying to save romantic hope altogether.

I built How to Date Humans as a living reminder of the small, medium & large things that keep us human & make up a romantic life — even if it’s as simple as being The Neighbor with the Nice Blender.

Sometimes this work feels like an uphill battle. Sometimes I wish I just stayed the course & climbed the corporate ladder (Maybe I’d be a CMO by now!). But in my gut, I knew that this work couldn't wait.

So, we have 2 options:

We can stay the course & continue handing our humanity over to technology.
Or we can be willing to resurrect things that died for the sake of convenience. We can choose to make our connections mean something — anything. We can choose to believe in love & romance before we lose them for good.

You know which one I’ll be rooting for.

Email Lakshmi