Anyone else forget to pay attention to conversations? Like, I can be super invested in what we're talking about, but, then... something is going on... on the other side of the street... and, oh god, what did anyone say? (I also sometimes get distracted trying to articulate something I'm going to say, only to start paying attention again, and discover it's no longer relevant. I feel a lot guiltier about that tho, like, I care more about what I'm saying than about listening, but I can't really control it) This happens at least once or twice in every prolonged conversation I'm part of (how long I can keep focus depends on energy level more than interest in the subject), and I'm kind of wondering how common of a problem it is
I have something like that too. I describe it as my brain getting bored. I am interested, but sometimes too many words just makes my brain shut down. I find it is especially prone to distraction when I am tired/stressed. This also happens when reading as well.
Ah... yes. Happened badly last night, I was playing a tabletop rp over skype with a couple of friends and hopped onto here briefly, only to get distracted by a post and miss an Important Plot Detail. Was called back by the DM asking what my character did and had to ask them to repeat everything because I had no idea what was going on. No idea what causes it, might be related to tiredness but most definitely not always. I know I can't read one thing and listen to something different, which contributed to the above, but I also get rorleuaisen's description of brain getting bored- I can sometimes feel my brain aching for a distraction even if I'm genuinely interested and invested in the conversation.
Lots. Also, when I'm focussed on something, I will not pick up on what's being said for a few seconds after someone's interrupted me. Context switches are slow.
Yup. Sometimes I don't realize it, either, but I was talking to a friend when I was reading a list online of possible ADHD things, and I went "I don't do that much" - she stopped me and went "dude, basically every time I start a conversation with you there's this 2 second long pause before you look up" and I was like "whaaaaat" and she was like "I used to think you did it on purpose" and I was like "Oh. Uh, nope. as it turns out, I was not aware I was doing that so much. Whoops" And then we chuckled and went to get ice cream (I also once wasted a good fifteen minutes in class because I realized that my professor puts weird stresses on the syllables of ptsd (I think most people either stress "p" or all of them equally - he stresses "s") and then tried to figure out if he did that with all his acronyms. #what a lovely story #what was i talking about? #anyway so ice cream is great
