One of my most recent couples were recently featured in the Washington Post. Check out their article!

'I didn't want to miss my chance'

GALLERY

Krysta Borkowski and Mike Scanlon can credit the 2007 holiday shopping season and a couple of shoplifters for helping them find each other -- and fall in love.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

By Ellen McCarthy

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, November 7, 2010

The first time she met Mike Scanlon, Krysta Borkowski had just caught two teenage girls shoplifting. The Virginia Tech senior was home for Christmas break, working at Macy's at Fair Oaks Mall the day after Thanksgiving in 2007, when she called Fairfax County police to help with the incident. She knew two of the officers who showed up from previous cases, but didn't recognize Scanlon.

"I thought he was the cute, hot cop," she recalls. "But I also really liked his sense of humor -- he was the one who kept everybody laughing."

Borkowski, then 22, guessed that Scanlon was about 28, and though she'd had an on-again, off-again boyfriend since high school, she hoped that duty would call Scanlon back to the mall a few more times that holiday season.

In fact, he'd be there almost every day. Scanlon had been on the force for 13 years, but this was the first time he'd been assigned to the Christmas anti-theft team. His unit was specifically tasked with covering Fair Oaks; he and a partner would patrol the mall in 11-hour shifts looking for criminal activity.

Borkowski spent her days in a closet-size room full of dozens of monitors. After working as a salesperson at the store for several years during high school, she'd joined their loss prevention team and was responsible for helping to prevent thefts and accidents.

Because of Macy's size, Scanlon checked in regularly with Borkowski's security office. Between laps around the mall, he'd plant himself in the tiny room to watch their shoppers -- and visit the pretty blonde with the easy laugh.

"I was enamored enough with her that I would always volunteer to go in early," he recalls.

Over the weeks leading up to Christmas, the dark office became, he says, "like a confessional, almost. A lot of sharing was done in that office and expressing how we felt about life and the world in general -- politics, religion, everything."

Borkowski told Scanlon about the problems she and her sometimes-boyfriend were having. Scanlon told her he wasn't 28, as she'd assumed -- he was 37, father of two teenage daughters who live in Upstate New York and just coming off a divorce after 16 years of marriage.

"It was open disclosure from the very beginning," she says.

Her crush grew increasingly intense, but Borkowski was certain the feelings weren't mutual. "I just kept telling my friend, 'Oh, I hope he comes today,' " she recalls.

In January, the week before she went back to school, Borkowski made brownies for all the officers who'd helped throughout the season. "I wanted to show appreciation for their work, and I also had an ulterior motive -- for him to recognize that I liked him," she says.

She persuaded him to help pull a prank on a friend who had recently ditched her and another pal when they were out at a bar. So while the three women were at dinner that night, Scanlon put a ticket on the car of the offending friend, writing out that she had "Violated the Friend Act." He pulled up in his cruiser just in time to witness the discovery of the ticket, and after they all had a laugh, Borkowski invited Scanlon and his buddies to join them at a nearby bar when they got off work.

The group spent the evening chatting around a table, and at the end of the night Scanlon walked Borkowski to her car. "I think we were out there for an hour and a half, just talking," he says. "And that was where we had our first hug."

A few night later they hung out again. As Borkowski drove Scanlon back to his truck after the date, he began to frantically strategize about how to kiss her when they said goodnight. "Being my age, you'd think it was no big deal, but it was a huge deal," he says. "I don't want to just leave with a handshake and a hug. I want to give her a kiss, but how do I do that? Do I give her a kiss on the cheek? Do I kiss her on the lips?"

Before he had a chance to figure it out, Borkowski brought the car to a sudden halt, put the parking brake on and leaned over the console to kiss him. "I didn't want to miss my chance," she says with a shrug.

Scanlon sank into a funk when Borkowski went back to school, but they began to text constantly and talk on the phone whenever both had a free second. She told the former boyfriend they were done for good and began coming up to Washington every weekend, often staying until dawn on Monday, when she'd drive four hours back to Blacksburg to make it to her 8 a.m. class.

By February, he'd told her he loved her, but she still wasn't sure where the relationship was headed. "I had never dated anybody that there was such a huge age difference," she says. "Our lives were totally different."

She hadn't worked up the nerve to tell her father about the relationship; her mother and several friends reacted with skepticism. "Cops don't always have the best reputation. Some of them are known as womanizers," she says. "I kept telling my mom, 'No, this guy is nothing like that.' "

Scanlon never considered the age difference a problem but knew it made others wary.

At Easter, Borkowski took him to her parents' Clifton home to meet the entire family. "I've been shot at. I've driven 125 miles an hour chasing people through busy traffic," he says. "But meeting her dad was probably the most trepidatious thing that I've ever done."

They quickly warmed to each other, despite concerns about Scanlon's age. When Borkowski graduated, she returned to the area and moved in with Scanlon. "It was very natural," says Borkowski, now 25 and working for a government contractor. "I've never gotten along with a roommate as good as I did with Mike. We just clicked."

And to Scanlon's great relief, the no-holds-barred communication that began in the Macy's security office and continued over the phone while she was at school remained intact. "I'm not afraid to tell her what I think or feel, and same thing for her -- she can tell me anything," says Scanlon, now 40. His one regret is that of his two daughters, now 17 and 18, only the younger has wanted to meet Borkowski.

Still, over the course of 2008 he began to think seriously about marriage. The relationship "was just so easy," he says. "There was no work involved. And to have that -- I don't want to lose it."

In March 2009, using a ring made with her grandmother's diamond, Scanlon proposed. (Actually, he proposed twice that day; the first time she cut him off after finding out he hadn't asked for her parents' blessing. He zipped over to their house to ask for her hand, hurried back and got down on one knee again. That time, she responded, "Of course.")

By then, she says, the skepticism from others had vanished -- "just after seeing us interact with each other." At Fairfax Old Town Hall on Oct. 16, Borkowski walked unaccompanied down the aisle to meet Scanlon, and the two were married before 100 guests.

Two days before the wedding, she sat thinking about what made their pairing work. "A big part is the age difference," she concluded. "I would say I'm a little bit more mature for my age and that Mike is a little bit immature for his age. And we somewhat meet in the middle."

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