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They’ve shared everything since their first date

About two months after they met and moved in together, Glenn and Angelo started discussing marriage.

Angelo Garcia and Glenn Lewis with their dog, Pepe. The two just celebrated their 5 year wedding anniversary last month, Tuesday, October 26, 2021.
Angelo Garcia and Glenn Lewis with their dog, Pepe. The two just celebrated their 5 year wedding anniversary last month, Tuesday, October 26, 2021.Read moreSTEVEN M. FALK / Staff Photographer

Angelo Garcia & Glenn Lewis

It started with a mysterious wink.

Glenn hadn’t been on Match.com for three years. How was someone using the dating website to e-flirt with him?

“This has to be something strange,” he thought that February day in 2015. But in the profile behind the wink, he found Angelo, who, like him, was a 50-something, family-oriented man of faith. And Angelo was handsome, too.

“I’m not sure if this is a joke or not,” Glenn typed. “If it isn’t, call me.”

Angelo, who is now 62, called Glenn, now 63, that evening. “We talked every single day for two to four hours each time,” Angelo said. “We talked about our work, about our families, about what we did that day.”

Glenn, a Social Security supervisor, is one of seven siblings. He and his sister Cynthia were then sharing a house in Norristown, where they all grew up.

Angelo, the stylist who owns Angelo’s Hair Design in Jenkintown, is one of eight siblings. He lived in Fern Rock, in the very same house where he grew up.

After a week of phone calls that revealed similar senses of humor and world views — and also demonstrated that they might never run out of things to talk about — Glenn and Angelo met in person.

On a Friday after work, Glenn took the train to meet Angelo at SEPTA’s Jenkintown station, which is near the salon. “He brought me a huge bouquet of flowers,” remembers Angelo, who then drove them to what was SugarHouse Casino.

Glenn had fun even though casinos aren’t his thing. Angelo was having a good night in more ways than one. “I won a little bit of money on the slots, so I said, ‘Let’s go get something to eat to celebrate,’ ” he remembered. They arrived at the Oregon Diner around 7 p.m. and lingered over their eggs until about 9:30 —- talking was just as easy in person. Their final stop for the night was Angelo’s house.

“I don’t have any clothes here,” Glenn said the next morning.

“I’ve got plenty of clothes,” Angelo told him.

Glenn wore some to drive Angelo to the salon. He dropped him off, then drove off in full sight of Angelo’s incredulous employees. “They said, ‘Are you crazy? You don’t even know him!’ ” Angelo remembered. “ ‘I trust him,’ I told them.”

Glenn borrowed some of Angelo’s clothes the next morning, too.

“I’m going to go home,” he said as he was getting ready.

“This is your home,” said Angelo.

Glenn was stunned. He couldn’t believe what was happening, but at the same time, “It felt so natural,” he said.

The couple has lived together since their first date.

Glenn did return to Norristown that Sunday, filling in his sister as he packed his things. “She was shocked, but supportive,” Glenn said.

That statement described the initial reaction of pretty much all of their friends and family -— which includes a multitude of beloved nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews, as well as Angelo’s mother, Melba, who is now 88.

The couple quickly fell in love. “He’s very caring,” said Angelo. “He helps me out a lot. And he likes to do lots of stuff together -— we go out to dinner, we go to the movies, we go to the theater.” Glenn loves similar things about Angelo. “His kindness, his caring, his support. Just him being there,” he said. “Plus, he keeps me in line.”

Their families and friends soon saw all of this, too. Glenn’s people welcomed Angelo into their lives, and Angelo’s welcomed Glenn. Especially important in the friends-who-are-like-family category is Bonnie, who has known Angelo since they were in seventh grade at Fels Middle School. She lived with Angelo for about a year before he and Glenn met, but soon after Glenn moved in, Bonnie began packing her things to give them space. Glenn and Angelo stopped her, and invited her to stay. “We’re like Three’s Company,” she says, referring to the ‘70s and ‘80s sitcom starring John Ritter, Joyce DeWitt, and Suzanne Somers as roommates.

The fourth in their home is Pepe, a Yorkie/Chihuahua mix.

“He is our child,” said Glenn.

Both men previously had been in long-term relationships. Angelo lived with his former partner, James, for 29 years until James died of a heart attack in 2011. “I was blessed with two good guys,” Angelo said.

About two months after they met and moved in together, Glenn and Angelo started discussing marriage. “There really wasn’t a proposal,” said Angelo. “We just said we wanted to get married, and we set up an appointment to get married.”

They wed on Sept. 4, 2016, at Grace Epiphany Episcopal Church in Mount Airy.

Glenn had first heard the trio of young violinists who played during the ceremony while he waited at Reading Terminal for the train home. The next day at work, he was still thinking about their beautiful music and told a coworker he wished he could reach them and ask them to play at his wedding. His coworker said she was one violinist’s aunt.

After saying their vows and taking some photos, the newlyweds stepped outside the church to find their limo had left. “We had to call them back to pick us up,” said Angelo. They were too happy to care all that much, and were soon enough at Port Richmond’s Richmond Hall, enjoying heavy hors d’oeuvres, cupcake centerpieces, top-shelf liquor, and a dance floor their 200 guests kept crowded all night.

“Our marriage is going good,” said Glenn. “Communicating has a lot to do with it — there is absolutely no expectation of mind reading. We’re silly at times, too — we share a lot of laughter.”

“If I need help, he helps me. If he needs help, I help him,” said Angelo. “We go grocery shopping together. We pay the bills together. And we trust each other. When you’re younger, you can get jealous of this or that. But when time goes on you grow. I trust him, and he trusts me.”

Angelo spends two days a week helping his mother -— his siblings take turns. He really appreciates Glenn’s support of that, and that Glenn joins him and his entire family for Friday night dinner at mom’s house each week.

“Maybe we’ll retire in a couple of years and do some traveling,” Angelo suggests.

They hope to travel across the United States by train, which has long been on Glenn’s bucket list, and also to visit Europe so Angelo can make his first-ever trip to Italy.

Mostly, Glenn said, “We want to grow very old together.”