^ You're lucky to have someone like that. Most of the people I know are only really interested in their own problems (or those on TV shows) and if they want to listen it's only ever to say after a while "why don't you come and help me do job X... It'll make you feel better". Yeah, right.
As for my personality, where does the negativity end? I'm pessimistic, saturated with dark cynicism and extremely self aware and critical. I try not to do anything which will affect others in a negative way, but I can think of so many possible outcomes to what I say or do that I'm driven mad with anxiety before I even begin. Despite this I still end up doing or saying things which I regret hugely afterwards even though I don't know what has happened as a result of that action for certain.
What doesn't help this is my insanely critical outlook on others coupled with an arrogance which despite my frantic attempts to quell it rears it's head at the worst possible moments. And as an afterthought, my life has dumped on me a cold, defensive and unsympathetic exterior to protect my unstable and self-destroying interior. As a result, people are automatically bias against me. Which is so helpful.
Life has given me no reason to stop being pessimistic and realistic- I'm almost always justified in my outlook that the worst situations will occur. Life almost never throws me something good and surprising and any happiness which I have encountered is flattened within hours. That's just how life is. And I know that so many others are worse of than me, but I've never felt better about myself by comparing myself to other.
And, to top it all off, I still fall into hope. Hope, that greatest of gifts and cruelest of creations, still glimmers in the abyss of my mind. And whenever I reach it... it's always fools' gold.