Leisure

On the Edge

Five Adrenaline-Pumping Dates

Hey, sometimes it happens. You fall into a routine, and your dates get stagnant. So now that the weather is nice-ish, we bring you five off-the-wall dating ideas to add some much-needed adrenaline to them. Or just hang out above a gorge in Vermont. Enjoy.

FOR DAYS OF THUNDER

Romance = High-Speed Car Racing

The Challenge: A fresh take on the long-car-ride date. On the first gravel-paved oval racetrack in America.
The Risk: Your date, a Daytona 500–caliber car with a pro driver at the wheel and those vibrations.
The Reward: Real side-by-side racing in a pair of Sprint Cup–style stock cars with a Robert Duvall type in your ear. Remember: rubbin’ is racing.

FOR THE IRON EAGLE

Aerial Dogfighting. Ballsy Date.

The Challenge: Air-based warfare, and all the g-forces that come with it.
The Risk: Suddenly discovering a steady stomach on a flight to Bermuda doesn’t mean you’re immune to queasiness after barrel-rolling at six G’s and battling it out in five trainer-assisted dogfights.
The Reward: Seeing your date in full jumpsuit climbing out of the cockpit.

FOR DANNY DECKCHAIR

Love Is in the Air. Over a Gorge.

The Challenge: It’s a hot-air balloon. Just don’t fall out.
The Risk: Finding the one date on the entire planet who won’t get a rush from hovering between 1 and 3,000 feet over Quechee Gorge in Vermont. With champagne.
The Reward: Taking advantage of the breathtaking natural splendor of the Green Mountains below with Auden’s poetry, read with a twinkle in your eye.

FOR THE FEARLESS

You, Her and Some Sharks

The Challenge: Using that scuba license acquired in Fiji to cage-dive with some sharks off the coast of Rhode Island.
The Risk: Revealing your tween-schoolgirl scream if a 10-foot blue shark catches you off guard.
The Reward: Hopefully not ending up like Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws after your steel-cage experience dancing with mako sharks.

FOR THE X GAMER

Two Days on the Cape. Kiteboarding.

The Challenge: Harnessing the wind with a monster kite on Cape Cod. Dancing on water afterward.
The Risk: Impulse beach-house purchases to regularly utilize your new X Games chops.
The Reward: Mastering one-handed body-dragging across the waves on a board pulled by brawny sea air gusts. Allowed: outbursts of “WHEEEEEEEEEEE.”