Date night!

Was I surprised by the idea? Yes. But to each his or her own!

Today's newsletter is about Chick-fil-A, my marriage, and what happened before.

Let’s start with the situation today: I've told you this before. I’m a happily married man. My wife is smart, kind, and beautiful. We have a wonderful family. Life is very good.

But things weren’t always like this! Years ago, when I got out of my last relationship, prior to finding romantic and domestic Shangri-la, a friend gave me some advice:

Put your past squarely in the past. Go on tons and tons of dates. Find strength in numbers.

With that in mind, I decided to try to date 100 women in a single year. It was a great experience in building confidence, and I thought of writing a book about it.

Let me give you the key takeaway: This crazy project actually worked. As it turned out, I quit about two-thirds of the way through the project when my now-wife entered the picture.

(I think it was a wise decision on my part to abandon the idea of writing a book about dating when I had begun dating the woman I wound up marrying.)

I thought about my “year of living date-er-ously” (sorry) when I heard that Chick-fil-A has ranked No. 1 in the eyebrow-raising category of “Most popular fast-food restaurant for first dates.”

The website DatingNews.com asked 3,000 American men if they thought it would be a good idea to take a first date to a fast-food restaurant.

Color me surprised, but 54 percent of men said yes, absolutely, this sounds like a great idea. Maybe even more surprising, 66 percent of women said they’d be fine with it.

Drilling down, men ranked Chick-fil-A as the top quick-service chain for first dates, with Dairy Queen and Pizza Hut coming in second and third.

“A first date is a risk, and in this economy, modern singles are saving their time and money by opting for a chicken sandwich over a chicken marsala,” said Amber Brooks, editor-in-chief at DatingNews.com.

I don’t mean to suggest that this is some kind of double-blind, peer-reviewed study. It’s more food for thought.

Also, there’s a part of me that chuckles a bit every time I hear somebody say “in this economy?”

(Speaking of which, as far as I can tell, this survey was limited to men asking women on dates.)

While I’m not sure I would have personally considered Chick-fil-A to be a first-date venue, I did have a few “go to” cheap first-date ideas back in the day, for example:

• Meeting for a drink downtown and then going on crazy long walk-and-talks straight out of an Aaron Sorkin movie;

• Hitting up a cheap taqueria near my apartment or $7 bleacher seats at Washington Nationals baseball games; and

• Going tandem skydiving (we were each attached to an instructor, not to each other).

I did this last date idea only once, and to be fair, it doesn’t really belong on a list of cheap dates.

However, if you’re still in the dating world, I highly recommend tandem skydiving. You will make an impression.

Now, to be a bit more serious for a moment — we can’t open our phones these days without being algorithmically fed yet another account of how people just aren’t dating and getting together romantically in the numbers that they used to.

It’s an important issue if we think the human race should continue.

Consider a recent Stanford University study suggesting that the pandemic resulted in 13 million “extra” single Americans, who would probably have paired up otherwise:

For millions, dating and other social activity never recovered, with effects that aren’t just personal and psychological but economic and perhaps even political.

The labor supply, housing demand and tax revenue all depend on demographic dynamics that begin with a first date. Casual dating can lead to moving in together, marriage, children, home ownership and joint savings accounts.

“Almost all of the more serious relationships start in this gray area,” says Stanford sociology professor Michael Rosenfeld. “But those beginning relationships are more vulnerable to disruption and breakup.

We all need relationships, and we all need places for them to begin.

Look, maybe you’ve had life experiences similar to mine, or maybe you haven’t yet. (Or maybe you have kids, and you’d love to see them find someone special.)

Still, you might agree that the best things sometimes happen when you take a bold step forward with no real idea how things will turn out.

So, my advice—which I hope you’ll help spread—is simple:

Ask her out! Ask him out! Ask out whomever you want!

The worst that can happen is they say no. (Their loss.)

For that matter, take them to Chick-fil-A if that's your jam. Why not?

But seriously, don’t sleep on skydiving. No matter what happens on your date, I guarantee you’ll remember it.

Poll time. Let’s do our own experiment and see if these BMJ Mental Health people know what they’re talking about.

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7 other things worth knowing today

• In Vatican City, clergy keep their phones by their pillows. Reporters open emails with trepidation. Faithful have begun to gather expectantly in St. Peter’s Square. All await terse bulletins from the Vatican on the condition of Pope Francis, who remains critical after being taken to a hospital 11 days ago with bronchitis that developed into pneumonia in both lungs. Francis, who initially speculated that he would have a short pontificate, has instead led the church for a dozen eventful and busy years. (NY Times)

• President Trump announced he's creating a "Gold Card" immigration program that will allow the world's wealthiest people to acquire U.S. residency and a path to citizenship for $5 million. It will have "Green Card [permanent residency card] privilges, plus," Trump said. Notable (h/t Brandon Friedman): Anyone who has a "Green Card" is exempted from the prohibition on foreign nationals funding U.S. elections. (CNBC, FEC.gov, Bluesky)

• A group of prominent military contractors, including former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, has pitched the Trump White House on a $25 billion proposal to carry out mass deportations through a network of “processing camps” on military bases, a private fleet of 100 planes, and a “small army” of private citizens empowered to make arrests. The plan recommends a range of aggressive tactics to rapidly deport 12 million people before the 2026 midterms. (Politico)

• A court upheld the conviction of the Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes for defrauding investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars while operating her failed blood-testing startup, once valued at $9 billion. Holmes, 41, who started Theranos as a college student and became its public face, is expected to be released from prison in 2032. (The Guardian)

• The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out the conviction and death penalty for Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man who has maintained his innocence for more than a quarter century, and who came so close to execution that he three times ate what was supposed to be his "last meal." Three of the court's conservatives joined the court's three liberals in concluding that prosecutors had denied Glossip a fair trial, not once, but twice. (NPR)

• Luigi Mangione, charged with murder in the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is asking his fans not to overwhelm him with photos and messages amid his incarceration in Brooklyn, New York. From his legal defense website: "I am overwhelmed by - and grateful for - everyone who has written me to share their stories and express their support. While it is impossible for me to reply to most letters, please know that I read every one that I receive." More than 19,000 people have donated $618,000+ to his defense fund. (NBC 15)

• Near disaster: A Southwest Airlines flight was forced to perform a go-around maneuver while coming in for a landing at Chicago Midway International Airport when a private jet began taxiing across the plane’s path on the runway Tuesday morning. Video from the airport shows the Southwest aircraft nearly touching down on the runway when it suddenly pulls back up to fly over the smaller Flexjet aircraft that entered its path on the runway. (Fox News)

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Thanks for reading. Photo by Kamil Pietrzak on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments!