CONTEST: How Did You Meet the Love of Your Life?

He says he fell in love with the back of my neck.

You see, he was my hairdresser. But he started out as my friend Louise’s hairdresser at Your Father’s Mustache in downtown Wheeling. I’d just tag along when she’d go for a haircut — to feed my high school crush.

But he was older. And unavailable.

Three years later, I was older. And he was available.

It was Thursday, Feb. 9, 1978. We ran into each other at Wheeling’s premier club, Tin Pan Alley, the night after we both had attended Gary Wright’s “Dream Weaver” concert at The Capitol Music Hall. (On Wednesday, I had fallen “in love” with a guy in Huey Lewis’ band, “Clover,” that had opened for Wright. But, when Bruce — who would turn out to be the “Mr. Right” of my dreams — asked me out, I forgot all about Sean-the-drummer. Album note: Love Is Alive, Made to Love You and Power of Love were just three of the hits from “Dream Weaver.”)

A couple of nights later, Feb. 11, we went to see the movie, “The Turning Point.” 

And, it was!

Forty-four years, (38 of them as husband and wife), two children and two grandchildren later, he’s still cutting my hair. But, just mine. In our kitchen. He hung up his professional scissors — when first-born Amanda Rose was just eight-months-old — to pursue other endeavors.

Suffice it to say, I’m glad my high school crush on my hairdresser, Bruce Wheeler, (now executive director of the Wheeling Symphony and producer of the Heritage Music BluesFest) turned into the life and the love (and free haircuts) we have today.

— Phyllis Sigal

I was on my way to work at Staffileno’s on the River, then a family-owned restaurant in Wellsburg, when I got stuck in traffic. Traffic. In Wellsburg. I was just as confused as you are.

I was perplexed as to why cars were all stopped for a cavalcade of fire trucks and police cruisers, sirens blazing, parading down Route 2 that Sunday morning. I ended up being a few minutes late to work, and when I explained why to my boss, he responded, “That’s because Ryan Weld came home today. He was in Afghanistan.”

The name didn’t mean anything to me. Somehow, despite both being from Wellsburg, our paths had never crossed.

That is, until later that afternoon. A large party of about 20 came into Staffileno’s for lunch that day, and while I filled up salt shakers at tables across the restaurant, a man stood up from that group and walked toward me.

I looked up, expecting him to introduce himself, but instead, he muttered an awkward hello and kept walking.

It wasn’t until later that I learned that he was the man who had come home from a deployment in Afghanistan just that morning.

And much later, I learned that right before he walked up to me, he joked with his friend, “I just survived the Taliban — I think I can ask a girl out.” Turns out, that wasn’t the case.

It took a second introduction from Ryan’s cousin and my then-coworker, Jenna, before we properly met. That was in 2011; the rest is history.

I guess the old saying is true: Good things come to those who wait (in traffic).

— Alex Weld

It was August of 1994, and I worked part-time teaching at a rubber stamp store in Pittsburgh. The owner of the shop, two others I planned a weekend trip to a rubber stamp convention in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I have to admit, I looked at this weekend as a fun girls’ getaway. The last thing I expected was to meet a guy — let alone my future husband — at this particular event.

While having lunch near the convention, a guy walked up to our table.

“You can’t hit on any of these women — except one. She’s the only single one,” my friend Margie said, introducing us. (She was joking and later told me that she would have never thought to introduce us).

Bob was an artist and art therapist who lived in Martins Ferry, Ohio. He was at the convention selling stamps that he created of his own images. Apparently, he frequented the stamp shop in Bloomfield when I was not there.

I thought Bob was cute and funny. Apparently, he thought the same about me. He later told me he had recently been rejected by someone he had asked out and would have never even thought to pursue me. 

When the convention opened on Saturday morning, I went up to Bob’s table and asked him if he’d like a Coke or something as he couldn’t leave his table. He smiled and said he would. When I returned, he handed me a paper that said, “10 reasons to not go out with me.”

I didn’t read it until I left, but it made me laugh. I definitely am attracted to a sense of humor! 

So, I responded to every “reason” he listed with humor and a bit of sarcasm and handed it back to him later that day. That definitely “broke the ice,” and we talked more that weekend, and he said he would give me a call the following week.

I officially had a crush!

Our first date was to an outdoor antique and flea market, the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum and a Mexican restaurant called Hungry Jose’s in Washington, Pennsylvania. It was the best day ever! We continued to go out on most weekends and talked on the phone through the week. 

On a dark October morning, I left my house to walk to work. When I saw Bob sitting on the steps of my neighbor’s house, it startled me. The first thing I said was, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, and handed me a box. In it was a handcrafted silver pin — two hands around a heart — created by an artist we had met at an arts festival. When I opened it, he asked me to marry him! 

I was really caught off-guard, but I was beaming. (We laugh about it now, but my first reaction was to say, “I need to think about it!” I did tell him I would marry him the next day, and we planned to marry the following October 1995.

While our relationship was only two months old when we became engaged, I just knew when I met him that he was the one.

I still feel that he is.

— Chris Villamagna