I recently had an opportunity to go backpacking for the first time. It seemed like something I’d dislike, so my first reaction was to pass. When I’m pretty confident I’ll dislike something I’ve never tried, I’m right maybe 80% of the time. On reflection, a ~20% chance of finding a new and exciting hobby sounded pretty good, so I decided to go—the expected value of information was very high.
I’ve noticed that the people most available to try an activity with will often be bad choices for a beginner to accompany, because they’re selected for being too intense. This seems particularly common with outdoors activities.
I don’t know if this is relevant to your experience.
I recently had an opportunity to go backpacking for the first time. It seemed like something I’d dislike, so my first reaction was to pass. When I’m pretty confident I’ll dislike something I’ve never tried, I’m right maybe 80% of the time. On reflection, a ~20% chance of finding a new and exciting hobby sounded pretty good, so I decided to go—the expected value of information was very high.
It turns out I actually don’t like backpacking.
I’ve noticed that the people most available to try an activity with will often be bad choices for a beginner to accompany, because they’re selected for being too intense. This seems particularly common with outdoors activities.
I don’t know if this is relevant to your experience.
Not in this case. We had a couple experienced people and many novices.