In this paper we make an attempt to study the influence of optimism and pessimism into our social life. We base on the model considered earlier by Rinaldi and Gragnani (1998) and Rinaldi et al. (2010) in the context of romantic relationships. Liebovitch et al. (2008) used the same model to describe competition between communicating people or groups of people. Considered system of non-linear differential equations assumes that the emotional state of an actor at any time is affected by the state of each actor alone, rate of return to that state, second actor's emotional state and mutual sympathy. Using this model we describe the change of emotions of both actors as a result of a single meeting. We try to explain who wants to meet whom and why. Interpreting the results, we focus on the analysis of the impact of a person's attitude to life (optimism or pessimism) on establishing emotional relations. It occurs that our conclusions are not always obvious from the psychological point of view. Moreover, using this model, we are able to explain such strange behavior as so-called Stockholm syndrom.

The paper aims to present the potential, for foreign language students, of the exolingual interactions online in public and open forums. For the analysis of students' commentaries, I apply the observation categories that were first elaborated for the analysis of posts published in press sites. I focus on narrative commentaries in which web users organize phenomena and events discussed in public discourse and try to give them their individual interpretation. I consider this kind of interaction on press sites as contributing to the civic debates: I argue that they can be also integrated in observation categories used to describe and analyze exchanges between students discussing social issues in reference to foreign language media information. In the paper I present two kinds of commentaries: those written by native speakers in public forums and those written by FL students in response to public commentaries.