Idyl Wyld
Nothing says “adorably old-fashioned” quite like roller skating. Picture yourself circling the rink thousands of times, holding hands and laughing at how bad you’ve become at skating. When you need a break, there’s a full arcade to impress your significant other with ski ball skills and win a stuffed bear to forever commemorate the date. The Marion skate rink also has a snack bar with nachos, pizza, candy and more. Even better, Friday night is dollar skate night. Go to www.idylwyldskate.com for more information.

Matter Park/Eugene “Beaner” Linn Park
If you’re up for adventure, there are several local opportunities to enjoy the great outdoors. Matter Park in Marion boasts more than a hundred acres of playgrounds, shelters and walking paths. Additionally, the Eugene “Beaner” Linn Park in Gas City sits on the Mississinewa River. Take a walk along the water, check out the playgrounds, relive your childhood.

Swayzee Antique Mall
If you’re a shopper, try the Swayzee Antique Mall. You never know what treasures you might find as great mementos of your day together. Look at the new items and old antiques, from books to toys to furniture to jewelry to Coca-Cola memorabilia. It’s certainly not your average trip to Wal-Mart.

CSA Art Gallery
If you enjoy the finer things in life, such as art, check out the Community School of the Arts Gallery. It’s open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Here you can view the talents of local artists. The Marion gallery features a different artist every month. This month, view Dayne Bonta’s photography from Ireland, Scotland and England. Go to www.csa-marion.com for further details.

Walnut Creek Archery
If you saw “Hunger Games,” which we know you did, you might want to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow like Katniss. At Walnut Creek Archery in Upland, visitors can shoot on both indoor and outdoor ranges for less than $10. It’s not open on Valentine’s Day, but is open the next weekend for a possible post-holiday date. Check out www.walnutcreekarchery.com for the details and location.

As the day dedicated to “coupledom” approaches, so do the sad looks given to those still classified as single.

Apparently, the only way to be a respectable and happy human being is to be in a relationship, or so says all those who are in relationships. But, if you are of a certain age (20-plus) and of a certain denomination (Wesleyan) and are not married, well, you, my friend, have been blessed with the gift of singleness. Or so one lady once told me. Welcome.

Now would be a good time to stop reading and soak in the awesomeness that is your destiny of being alone.

Because you have reached an age and are not dating someone, the mindset is you have lost all hope. People don’t tell you all the things you’re missing out on, for fear of hurting your delicate single feelings.

But just think of all the things you may avoid by not having to constantly worry about another person. Never will you have to share desserts, covers or toothbrushes, which I would advise against whether you have been given the gift or not … it really takes the pressure off.

Some people scoff at being patted and told that “some people are just blessed with the gift of singleness.”

But really, when this happens people should reply, “I know, right, it’s awesome,” and go on to tell them that they love not having to change their driver’s licenses or open joint bank accounts.

But seriously, I don’t think there is any such thing as being “blessed with singleness.” But I do think we put too much pressure on finding someone by a certain age and thinking otherwise we have failed. We live in an environment in which you are  judged for being single as well as  judged for being in a relationship.

Why can’t we just all get along? Some people like making out on the couches in McConn, and some people just don’t feel the need to have a circular band by the fourth month of a new calendar year. Who are we to judge… oh, wait, we are Wesleyan, after all.

Dr. B.J. Fratzke’s office is spacious and open. One side is covered with windows, the other with books. Pictures of her husband and family hang above her desk. Her husband, Dr. Mike Fratzke, the division chair of human and health performance, is running late to the interview.

B.J. Fratzke, the division chair of behavioral sciences, said she met her husband at LeTourneau University more than 40 years ago. She was a professor, and he was an upperclassman. As she was asked how she first met her husband, Mike Fratzke joined the interview. B.J. Fratzke looked at her husband and told him to share his first impression of her.

Mike: “I knew she was the one. I saw her walking across the gymnasium – I was on the far end playing badminton – and I said that is the one right there.”

B.J.:“I was wearing a white tennis outfit, and I was pretty nicely tan at that point in time.”

Mike: “She had an Indiana farm tan, [and] white blouse, white shorts, white socks, white tennis shoes.”

B.J.: “Everything white.”

Mike: “Long hair.”

B.J.: “Long dark hair with white teeth showing up.”

The Fratzkes looked at each other and laughed at the memory. Though Mike Fratzke knew immediately that he had found “the one” it took his wife a little longer to notice him.

B.J.: “Gosh, I don’t remember the first time I saw him.”

B.J. Fratzke said that even though it took some time for her to finally meet Mike Fratzke, she had already heard of him.

B.J.: “The real truth of the matter is the secretary of [my] department said to me, ‘Did you notice so and so?’ And I said, ‘Uh yeah.’ ‘Well, he’s single,’ [she said] and from there on she pushed. She thought she had made the match.”

Mike: “A lot of people like to take credit for it, the baseball coach.”

B.J.: “The baseball coach likes to take credit. The brother-in-law said, ‘Well, if it’s going well, I will take credit for it, otherwise…”

They both laughed at this comment. Mike Fratzke’s brother was partially responsible for B.J. Fratzke getting hired at LeTourneau.

Born and raised in Indiana Fratzke moved to Longview, Texas, to take a job as an instructor of physical education. Mike Fratzke was finishing up his undergrad work. In order to begin dating, the Fratzkes asked for special permission.

B.J.: “I got permission from the president of the university to date this young man – well, because I was a professor and he was a student.”

The Fratzkes went on their first date in October, though they couldn’t remember what exactly they did.

B.J.: “We went bowling.”

Mike: “I thought we went the football game first.”

BJ: “We went on the second [date].”

They got married the following June. The Fratzkes stayed at LeTourneau for the next 14 years, with Mike Fratzke joining the faculty two years later. During this time, the Fratzkes welcomed their two daughters. When they finally decided to head back to the Midwest, B.J. Fratzke was not excited to move.

BJ: “I didn’t even come with him to the interview because I was not interested to moving back to Marion. I was happy in my nice southern, warm climate, but as it turns out, the long and short of it is it was God’s place for Mike. So, I came along dragging my heels behind me, I’m quite sure at the beginning.”

Eventually B.J. Fratzke got on board and soon started working at Indiana Wesleyan University too. The Fratzkes said they have never had a problem working at the same institution.

B.J.: “Because we’re in different departments we have totally been OK with it.”

Mike: “You talk about working at the same place… I won’t accept term papers from her. [We]  maintain that separate identities.”

The Fratzkes talk about how the keys to their marriage are communication, giving and admitting you are wrong… sometimes.

B.J.: “I would [say] you really have to have a connectedness between the three of you: the two of us and God. Marriage is work and marriage is a lot of giving, but it’s joyful giving.”

Mike: “To remain teachable.”

B.J.: “That’s a perfect one: Remaining teachable is important, and having a sense of humor, and honestly being able to on occasion admit that you are wrong.”

Mike: “I was going to say on a rare occasion.”

B.J.: “When you really, really are [wrong], admit it and move on grow from it. Relationships are a lot about communication.”

Mike: “And spending time together.”

It wasn’t a secret that she was interested. He finally realized he was too … the day she decided to give up.

For Keith and Wendy Puffer, the turning point in their relationship came after becoming friends and co-workers while working as full time missionaries with Campus Crusade for Christ on Illinois State University’s campus.

Keith Puffer worked with men on campus while Wendy ministered to women.

“Work drew us together; ministry drew us together,” said Keith Puffer. “We were the only singles amidst all the predictions of what would happen to us.”

Still, the Puffers both say they started out as complete opposites.

“It wasn’t a natural fit at the time,” said Wendy Puffer. “From the outside, it definitely didn’t look like we would fit together as a couple.”

At first, she thought he was entirely focused on his job. He said she was too playful.

“My first impression was that work was his highest priority. But the more I got to know him, work was really his way of building relationships with people. He was really interested in the guys he was discipling; he spent a lot of time focusing on them and helping them, giving them good advice in the context of work,” Wendy Puffer said. “So that was the way he built relationships. But for my misconception, I would have thought it was just work.”

“Wendy was really playful. She played a lot. She didn’t have an intensity that I thought she should. Which I don’t think was fair. She just had a different kind of intensity … it was different from me,” said Keith Puffer. “And she was just as dedicated to the women that she was working with and dedicated to the ministry that we had set our hearts toward and so I think that overly playful first impression wasn’t accurate.”

Over several years of friendship, the two became closer, sharing ministry and life experiences. But Wendy Puffer wanted more. Despite their differences, she was interested in a romantic relationship with her spouse-to-be and pursued him accordingly. Fiercely independent, Keith Puffer wasn’t interested in being pursued.

“I didn’t want to be a person that just gave in to her pursuit,” he said.  “I genuinely wanted my own pursuit. And so it’s just easier if she could do all the work, that’s fine. But that wasn’t going to cut it for me.”

So Wendy Puffer gave up.

“As soon as she stopped pursuing, then my attraction deepened,” said Keith Puffer. “I spent so much time pushing her away that when she stopped pursuing me, I didn’t have to push and it’s like, ‘Oh, I really like this girl.’”

“So my advice for single women is be patient,” said Wendy Puffer.  “It’s worth the wait!”

Three years after initially meeting, the two married.

After their wedding, the Puffers moved into Chicago, where they worked as a ministry team through Moody Bible Institute. Two and a half years into their marriage, Wendy Puffer found out she was pregnant.

“It was a lot of work. It was hard, partly because financially [it] was really tight, and [we were] still working through a lot of things that we were learning in our dating relationship and engagement,” Wendy Puffer said. “Continuing that into the marriage relationship was still pretty tough the first couple years, I would say.”

This year, the couple will celebrate 25 years of marriage. Twenty-one of those years have been spent working at Indiana Wesleyan University.

The couple moved to Marion in 1991, when Keith Puffer took a position as the resident director of Williams Hall and began to teach developmental psychology as an adjunct professor. Today, he works as a full-time professor of psychology.

Wendy Puffer joined IWU’s faculty in 2000 as an adjunct professor for the art department. After working part-time for seven years, she pioneered the interior design program at the school and began to teach full time as an assistant professor of art.

“We’ve always helped and worked with college students,” Wendy Puffer said. “So I think that it’s a passion for the same thing, even if we were doing different jobs, is what would keep us feeling like we had that mutual motivation for what we do.”

The shared passion for youth has helped to define the Puffers’ marriage.

“We can get excited about the same things and frustrated about the same things,” said Wendy Puffer. “And when we meet challenges, we really understand each other.”