Obviously I don't want to shit on my home country or countrymen but honestly I was pretty shocked. I hadn't visited much since we moved here in 2018 because of

Obviously I don't want to shit on my home country or countrymen but honestly I was pretty shocked. I hadn't visited much since we moved here in 2018 because of covid so August 2022 was our first "proper" visit since 2018. Sure I met lots of happy people too but what stood out to me was how many people were unhappy. Even the happy people I hung around with soon (within an hour or so) turned into grumps and then the flood gates opened once one person got bitching about "the state of the UK" they all started. I lived in the UK since birth so 30+ years by the time I left. I don't ever remember people being so negative. Utility bills, shitty schools, awful local services, everything costing more and being shittier quality. It almost felt like everyone was in a sort of mild state of countrywide depression. Not quite sure how to put it but perhaps some kind of negative feedback loop of misery is just compounding in the general populations psyche? That might sound a bit over the top but I don't really know how else to describe it as an "inside outsider" that I am. The move to [redacted] has obviously been great for us. We moved in 2018 as I've mentioned, long story show once the vote to leave the EU won we decided to leave while we could. It took us two years of planning to make it happen and in a huge strike of luck my wife was made redundant (due to Brexit!) just a few weeks before she was going to hand in her notice having been contacted about a job here in [redacted]. So we left with a nice big cash lump sum, plus a fantastic signing bonus for my wife and a very generous relocation lump sum. In just a few weeks we went from very little savings to over £200k cash that we used to pay of all debts (including mortgage) and left the UK with zero debt and a nice chunk of cash most of which is now invested with some accessible for emergencies. Sadly a few "friends" from the UK who were quite pro Brexit saw us as "fools" for leaving and when we met up they didn't try to hide the fact they thought we were "traitors" (literally what they called us at one point) as we "profited from Brexit but don't agree with it and fucked off". They basically feel it is people like me and my family that are the 'reason' Brexit is a failure?! Their arguments make little to no sense obviously but it was quite sad to hear someone I used to enjoy hanging out with call me an asshole for "making loads of money while the country went to shit". Obviously nothing to do with Covid, Boris, a decade of Tory rule, all the vote Leave lies, etc. Trying to have a discussion with them was like trying to explain multithreading programming to a piece of wood but oh well I tried. I suspect his negative attitude towards me is more to due with his own issues and he found an easy target with me having moved to a country he hates. Certainly felt like he had a lot of build up anger and he let it all out when I popped round to say hi! So yeah lots of great things but also some emotionally difficult things come with moving country although I feel mine are more specific to the whole Brexit situation that wouldn't be an issue usually.