I really try not to engage in pointless whining about the classes I'm in or drama about test and professors unless I know that's exactly what the person I'm talking to is looking for. If you hate that shit, Grey Knight, I would avoid grad school like the plague because that is all the large majority of students there are interesting in talking about on a day to day basis. Deadlines and anything related I never want to talk about though, that's completely off the table.
You're right, though, it can be hard for really studious people especially in the sciences to have well developed interests elsewhere. I'm guilty of this, so are a lot of people, and there's a big gap where it's difficult to engage with people outside that sphere on those topics. Whenever I make an effort to meet a lot of new people I realize I don't know what people want to talk about and I tend to overthink it. That and talking to people about the trivialities surrounding our acquaintance's lives tends to be as frustrating to me as school talk seems to be for you.
