I couldn't pick the right person for a relationship. I had a history of proving that. So I created a committee.

I’m Meredith Morningstar. I’m originally from Dallas, Texas. 

My sister, in her eloquent way, diagnosed me with a broken picker. That means that I couldn’t pick the right person for a relationship. I had a history of proving that. So I created a committee because I couldn’t trust my own decisions. Some very close friends and my sister. Now unbeknownst to them, they were The Committee. I would get back to them, “How do you like this person?” And if they got good feedback, which most of the time they didn’t, they got to go to the next one. And in some cases, I imagined the community being almost like a gauntlet.

I had been seeing this woman for about a year. And I was laying it on. I was asking her out, showing up, dressing up, trying to do everything right. I liked her, even though one of my friends had told me, “She dates, she doesn’t settle down.” 

Another one of my friends, we went to a party and saw her, and my friend was like, “No.” 

And I was like, “Can I just play for a little while?” 

She was like, “Sure.” 

So my 60th birthday was approaching, and I was inviting people and talking to friends. And I was talking to this woman and she was like, “What can I bring?” 

I was like, “Whatever you like. I really don’t want a bunch of balloons. I don’t want a big cake that says, ‘Happy 60th.’ I didn’t need any of that.”

The day comes, she shows up at the door with a massive amount of balloons and a big cake that says, “Happy 60th Birthday.” 

I was like, “Great. Put it over there.” 

The party happens. It’s good. Everybody’s having a good time. My sister’s there. All of my friends are there. I’m hardly not really seeing this woman there. The party winds down. My sister and I are cleaning up after the party. I don’t really know where this woman is. She stays the night. 

The next morning, my sister and I get up. We’re making coffee and talking about breakfast. We’re milling about, and she’s just wandering around, this woman. And promptly, she decides to leave. I walk her to the door. As I’m turning around, walking back from the door, my sister gets in my face and she says, “You could do so much better.” 

That was three strikes. She had gone through the committee and everybody on the committee said no. Well, the final straw was the queen of the committee. 

My birthday was the next day, and this woman and I had made arrangements to go out to dinner. But I called her in less than 24 hours of my sister being in my face and I said, “We’re done.” 

She acted like her feelings all got hurt, “I thought we were going to dinner.” 

I was like, “Nope. We’re through.” 

Time went by. She’s calling me. She’s texting me. She’s trying to get me to go here. Do this. Wanting to chat. She wants to come by my house and have a conversation. I said, “I’ve been trying to sell myself to you for a year. You weren’t biting. You weren’t buying. It’s okay. I get it. I’m done.”

But she wouldn’t give it up. She kept… I mean, for three or four months, no, for four months, I’m getting texts, calls, wants to have another face-to-face talk. And I just ended up being unavailable, “Thank you very much. No.” 

And my picker’s no longer broken. I found myself no longer being drawn to the bad one. I found myself being drawn to a loving, energized creature with the help of the committee just giving me feedback about, “No, you’re making another bad decision.” Never saying those words, just going, “Mm-mm.” Then I… I don’t know. I just started looking somewhere else. 

So if I were talking to someone who was in, or is in, the same kind of cycle that I was in – or whatever their cycle is – and they want to break it… it’s like, “I’m always meeting the same person.” Well, are you always going to the same places to meet ‘em? Maybe you ought to go somewhere else. What are the things that you really like to do? Go do those things and open your eyes and look around there. Maybe you’ll find something there. If you go to a party and immediately your eyes are drawn to that person that is just like all those others, look the other way. Look somewhere else. Just breaking… break the cycle.