The Love Test: A Modern Adventure Romance

Text by Mara McFalls   Photograph by Daniel Pepper

There's a real problem for people sparking up romance in their 30s. Had I followed John's schedule, we'd have dated for five years, then gotten engaged for a year, then after a year or so, we would have had kids. Um, hello, I'd be 40 before I put a stretchy waist panel into my Sevens.

He's 37. I'm 32. And while John—a nice guy from the Long Island suburbs that I'd met on a blind date—did acknowledge that time was against us, the fact that he'd just divorced a total psycho and that I'd been engaged three times before made him reluctant to rush into anything with me, a runaway bride and/or a flake.

That's when it hit him: love tests. Instead of dating for years, we'd go away on some month-long oversea adventures and see if our young love could stand up to the pressures of extreme traveling. It's simple—up the pressure to yield in a few months what would otherwise take the standard few years to uncover.

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