LOL - maybe you are in a high aspergers area! I do not encounter people like this often and so when I do it's really very obvious to me.
I wish it was that. Most people don't really pay attention. Conversations are fluffed with "go ahead and keep talking, but I'm not really paying attention" phrases. Real listening is uncommon as is attuned conversation. Criss-cross soliloquy is the norm.
The bad thing for gifted folks with typical social skills is that their interests may not encompass the nodding awareness topics like sport statistics, weather, fotm TV, gossip, etc. So, what is really just an interest mismatch is read as a skill deficit.
