Complaining about complaining people

Faced with a prospect of running an English class all by myself,  I've decided to go for a topic that I actually have an idea about,  namely complaining.

Funny how foreigners perceive English politeness. My French student was completely outraged by a necessity to constantly use 'sorry'and 'excuse me', even in the most annoying and inconvenient situations. Here is where all the cultural differences come out and directness of other languages does not help at all.

Anyway, the lesson was surprisingly successful. People love complaing and they went on and on about problems with online orders, messy husbands etc. Fantastic,  especially that it is sometimes very difficult to get them talking.

And here comes the irony of this post as I'll be complaing about complaining people. Or maybe I won't be even complaining,  just jotting down a few thoughts on the matter.

My experience of Oxford small talk doesn't really resemble a textbook-like nice conversation in a type of 'how are you? I'm very well, how are you?' No, nothing of that sprt. Instead,  as a reply you usually get something along the lines of 'oh, I'm so tired, I've pulled an allnighter' or 'I'm quite hangovered after last night'.

Honestly, sometimes when I go to the dining hall the last thing I want to do is to see someone from my year. Because I know I will need to listen to yet another moan about essay deadlines,  headaches, lack of sleep, weather, tutors or overcooked potatoes.

To put it straight,  I do have bad days every now and then. But when I'm having a casual conversation with a random person who is not really my close friend I don't want to listen to their imagine problems. I just want to have a nice conversatio , without any talk about personal life or anything of that sort.

I think that as good as having a moan is good sometimes, being unhappy and dissatisfied abput anything and everything makes you even more unhappy and prevents you from enjoying each day. I rather be surrounded by optimistic people than by a bunch of grumpy folk with nothing better to talk about than how terrible life is.  Thank you very much.