Rendezvous (Ru)

Rendezvous presents Ru, an AI date host with taste, who uses Qloo to plan dates, run games and keep two people talking about what they actually love.

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Inspiration

Rendezvous started as a human service. Through my travel business, clients (often men) would fill out a form about their partner and an upcoming occasion. I would then plan a date, weekend or trip built around who that person really is. The best plans always came from the same place: knowing someone's taste. The music they actually play, the films they quote, the food they crave.

I wanted to bring that magic to everyday couples, not just special occasions. At the same time, I kept noticing how hard it has become for people to simply connect. Dates fizzle into small talk, apps reward swiping over talking and conversations die before they get interesting. Generic AI can't fix that, because it doesn't know what people love.

Qloo's taste graph changed that. With real cultural intelligence across music, film, dining and more, an AI could finally find what two specific people share and turn it into plans and conversations that feel personal. So I created Ru: a clever, discreet fox in a houndstooth scarf who hosts the date for you.

What it does

Rendezvous presents Ru, an AI date host with taste. Ru uses Qloo to understand two people's tastes and turns that into dates, games and conversations that actually spark something.

  • Taste Profiles: Each person adds favorite artists, films, shows, restaurants and places in about a minute, with no login required to start. A Lifestyle tab lets people privately note preferences around alcohol, smoking and cannabis, and Ru follows a strict no-pressure rule in every plan and chat. That data stays private.
  • Taste Reveal: Ru compares both profiles through Qloo and reveals common ground (what you both love), bridges (where different tastes connect), and wildcards (what one person loves that the other probably will too).
  • Date Plans: Ru plans a full night in your city (dinner, an activity and a nightcap), with a reason for every stop explaining why it fits both of you. Any stop can be swapped. Each plan includes a blended soundtrack with "Open in Spotify" links.
  • Chat with Ru: Real two-person chat rooms where Ru hosts live, mixing natural questions, story prompts, follow-ups and taste-based games like This or That, Defend Your Pick and Guess My Answer. She waits for both people to answer before moving on and either person can mute her when they just want to talk.
  • Ru-lette: A spin-the-wheel date game with six activity modes, including AI-generated conversation prompts, song picks, recipes and photo challenges. Both people see the same live table whether they're together or apart, share a private photo booth and finish with a Ru-view debrief that adds the night to their memory book.
  • Concierge (premium): For anniversaries, birthdays and proposals, a planner describes their loved one and the occasion. Ru builds a Qloo-powered Taste Portrait and a draft plan, and a human planner reviews, refines, and books it.
  • People and private connections: Connect with someone through a private invite link or QR code. Each connection has its own chat, history and memories. Ru never carries anything from one chat into another.
  • Try a demo: Judges can experience the full flow instantly with two preloaded demo profiles but are highly encouraged to create their own profiles and chat with one another for a genuine experience.

Why it matters

  • Safer connections for women. With Rendezvous, people can connect through a private invite link or QR code without handing over a phone number or social media accounts. Women can get to know someone through hosted conversation first and decide on their own terms when, or if, to share more.
  • Support for men. Many men feel increasingly unsure about how to approach women or keep a conversation going. Ru acts as a respectful wingman: she plans thoughtful dates, suggests conversation that is grounded in shared interests and keeps things flowing without scripts or pickup lines.

How we built it

  • Frontend and hosting: Built with Lovable (React and Tailwind) and published at rendezvous.sha-i.com.
  • Backend: Lovable Cloud (Supabase) for the database, authentication, real-time sync, private photo storage and edge functions.
  • Agent: Ru runs as a tool-calling agent in edge functions. She decides which tools to use: resolving what people type into Qloo entities, pulling taste affinities, comparing two people's tastes, finding places in a city and building soundtracks from Qloo-recommended artists.
  • Qloo at the core: Every recommendation carries a "reason" field tied to real taste signals, so users (and judges) can see exactly why Ru picked it.
  • Real-time: Live chat rooms and the shared Ru-lette table sync across browsers, with hashed room keys and private invite links.
  • Accounts that grow with you: People can start as guests, then create an account to save everything. Profiles, connections, chats, date plans, Taste Reveals, Ru-lette progress, photos and memories autosave and restore on any device.

Challenges we ran into

  • Making Ru a host, not a hog. Early versions fired games back to back. I reworked her style to alternate questions, stories and follow-ups, only scoring real game answers, and added a shared mute so couples stay in control.
  • Real-time fairness. If one person spun the wheel while the other was mid-answer, it cut them off. I built protected re-spins: the current activity stays until the partner approves, and they can decline.
  • Privacy across devices. Keeping chats strictly between two people while letting accounts restore on new browsers took careful design, including backing up room access keys without exposing live rooms through saved snapshots.
  • Music without the Spotify API. Spotify's 2026 developer restrictions made playlist creation impractical for a public demo, so Ru builds song lists from Qloo artists with one-tap Spotify links instead.
  • Guest to account. Letting people try everything without a login, then safely merging their data into an account (with conflict resolution) was more complex than expected, but worth it to remove the login wall.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Going well beyond a single-player demo to real two-person live rooms that Ru hosts in real time.
  • Ru-lette, a full shared date game with AI-generated activities, a private photo booth and a memory book.
  • A character people actually like. Ru has a consistent personality, voice and look across every screen.
  • A Taste Reveal that shows something a generic chatbot can't: how two real people's tastes connect.
  • Building privacy in from the start: private invites, hashed keys, pair-only photos and a no-pressure lifestyle rule.
  • A real business model on day one, with a free everyday host and a premium human-reviewed Concierge tier.

What we learned

  • Taste is the shortcut to connection. "You both love slow-burn films" opens a better conversation than any generic icebreaker. Qloo makes that possible at scale.
  • AI works best as a host, not the main character. The goal is to get two people talking to each other, then step back.
  • Trust is a feature. Privacy, consent and control (mute, approve re-spins, private lifestyle data) matter as much as the fun parts.
  • Real-time multiplayer is hard, and small details like who can interrupt whom make a big difference in how respected people feel.

What's next for Rendezvous (Ru)

Rendezvous is more than a date planner. It's a tool for fighting the loneliness epidemic by helping people form real connections around what they genuinely love.

  • Taste Cards. Cards printed with your Rendezvous taste profile QR code. Download a free printable PDF version, or order premium cards on signature houndstooth stock. When you meet someone by chance, at a coffee shop, a concert, or on a flight, you can hand them a card instead of asking for their number. It's a low-pressure invitation that lets them connect on their own terms and helps turn serendipitous moments into real connections instead of lost ones.
  • Beyond romance. Friend connections, family game nights and long-distance relationships, all hosted by Ru.
  • Group chats and double dates with multi-person taste matching.
  • Ru's voice, so she can host out loud during a date night in.
  • Booking integrations for restaurants, events and travel, connected to the premium Concierge service.
  • Partnerships with venues, events and dating apps that want a host who helps people actually show up and connect.

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