People want to be happy (Zillmann 1988), especially people experiencing negative emotions (Andrade 2005). In this research, we consider whether people experiencing negative emotions are more or less likely than those in a neutral mood to seek enjoyable future outcomes and experiences. We posit the irony of negative mood is that it automatically makes people want to become happier, but associated physiological reactions also deter people from choosing activities and experiences that could make them happier. On the one hand, an individual`s negative mood automatically evokes that person`s mood-repair goals (Zillmann 1988), resulting in activities to improve mood, such as eating chocolate, listening to music, watching comedies or helping others (Andrade and Cohen 2007). However, a negative mood also automatically evokes frown-like expressions, resulting in tightening of the jaws and narrowing of the eyes. These reactions are the opposite of smile-like expressions that simulating positive experiences engender, including softening of the jaws and widening and crinkling of the eyes. These facial-muscular groups and reactions may be so opposing that smiling and frowning at the same time is extremely difficult if not impossible. Unaware of the true source of subjective feelings, people are likely to misattribute these feelings to unpleasantness of the enjoyable experience, and as a result avoid it. Moreover, if an enjoyable experience relies less on facial-muscular simulation, people in a negative mood should not avoid enjoyable products or experiences. Instead, people should become more likely to choose such experiences than otherwise and compared to people in a neutral mood, in line with their mood-repair goals. Across four studies, we showed that unhappy participants avoid enjoyable experience because they misattribute feelings of difficulty arising from simulating the experience to the outcome itself. When the need to simulate smile-like expression is reduced, the effects are attenuated.