Anecdotal support: I once dated a girl who really wanted to learn to partner dance. She dragged me to ballroom lessons, and then swing, and then lindy hop. I was mildly enthusiastic at best, but I got pretty good at it. At some point -- after we had broken up, ironically -- something clicked, and I got really into it, eventually competing and teaching dance classes for several years.

This is the moral I also take away from "Stumbling on Happiness:" we're really bad at predicting what will make us happy.

When you're single the incentives for being good at partner dancing are considerably higher than when you're securely in a relationship.

I went the opposite direction - from being a fanatical swing dancer while I was single to being completely uninterested in it after I met my wife. It was purely instrumental, in other words. And I saw the same pattern repeated with the majority of swing dancers both male and female. As soon as they were hooked up, it was see-ya.

This would make a good nature video on PBS.

Perhaps that's true in general, but all I can say is that wasn't true in my case. I had several relationships after becoming fanatical about it, and never stopped dancing.

That's not true in my experience. I've been partner dancing for about 6 years and that's where I met my girlfriend of the past 5 years. We still dance every chance we get (we have a portable dance floor in our apartment). It's absolutely wonderful that we have something that we can learn and excel at together.

I have seen some people meet while learning to partner dance and quit, however. Not because they "bagged a good one" per se, but because some couples think that they're only allowed to dance together (which can get boring no matter how you slice it) and have a difficult time accommodating each other in the learning process.

Very good point. Rings true for me and my wife, I'm sad to say.

Like any pattern, its value comes from knowing when to apply it.

Yes, a new thing (experience, hire, book, bauble, etc.) might turn out to be better than you had anticipated, but how valuable is that speculation? What is a good ratio of anticipated enjoyment to anticipated indifference? I think a lot of people are unhappy because they've filled their lives with things that they are mostly indifferent to, but still cling to them on the off chance that they'll be valuable later.

It's like the old pickle jar theory. You want to fill your life up with the best stuff available (big rocks), and leave the speculative stuff to fill in the gaps (sand), not the other way around.