Overwhelming Boredom

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I had wondered if my boredom was similar to boredom felt by people with ADHD, like I have ADHD limited to social things, Social ADHD.

1 (class). Mostly. I can be entertained as long as the teacher and topic are interesting. I found it amusing that one of my favorite teachers actually has an autistic son. I wonder if that has anything to do with it? I know my roommate absolutely hates her as a teacher though...

2 (group meetings). Depends on the people really. I'm taking that "meetings" is a professional/work meeting, rather than a social get together. If it's for work, then it's usually boring. For social it all depends on the people.

3 (1-on-1 conversations). It really depends on the person and topic. If it's one of my interests I'm fine, but if it's "what do you want for dinner?" then instant boredom occurs.

I wondered if it was related to sound. I can pay attention to a few speakers but there are some that I only catch a few words and my mind wanders off. It has nothing to do with the topic. I think it has to do with the sound or tone.

The idea of Social ADHD mentioned above makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, all of these overwhelming boredom activities have a big verbal/speech/auditory component, so maybe that is source of the problem.

I'm AWFULLY BORED in clubs, restaurants, at parties, family dinners, etc. Generally, I hate staying in any place other than home longer than a couple of hours.
Classes, lectures, etc.: depends on the topic. I have poor speech perception (and I'm too much distracted by visual impressions), but if the topic is important, I can concentrate.
In one-to-one conversations, I feel strained rather than bored because too many things have to be controlled (eye contact, intonations, concentrating while listening, etc.). In about an hour or two, I'm completely drained and can't properly follow what is said. Actually, I try to avoid this type of communication; I prefer being in a small group of people where I can withdraw from the conversation at any moment. Anyway, whenever it's no more than "small talk", I feel bored from the very beginning.

In my case, there's only one thing that helps: I love photography, and I'm never bored if I can shoot. Unfortunately, it's not always possible

happens to me too.

Yes. That is so true of me too. Let me begin with classes. When I was in college I had this night class that went from 5:00 to 10:00 on Wednesday nights in Trigonometry and Analytical Geometry. We were given one 15 minute break during the class. It was downright torture for me. I did learn to do something to help make time pass that I could do while also listening to the professor. I would sit next to the window and tally the number of times the traffic light changed leading to the bridge across the river. I would also daydream some too.

With group meetings---yuck. I find them incredibly awkward and usually very boring. The ones I have been to almost always end up the same way after staying on task---into a social gathering of who did what and who will do this...and did you hear?

One-on-one conversations can be bad too. There are some people I work with that it's hard to get away from them because they keep talking and talking and talking. I feel this tremendous urge to run! But out of respect for the person, I pretend to stay interested. But really, shouldn't they have respect for me and others they talk to upon realizing they are just talking to be talking? Really, these ones I am referring to just talk to be talking.

Now there are some people I have enjoyed talking to like one-on-one. One was the owner of an amusement park with a great roller coaster. I used to talk to him whenever my family vacationed in that area. Although I was a high school student at the time, he always found time to talk to me as long as I wanted to. He was a kind man that made me feel important.

I'm ADHD. I find it hard to listen to anything but a video game or a casual conversation.

Boring classes and meetings are torture. I agree you are "stuck". It's hard to learn anything when you are listening to a steady stream of conversation. My brain can't handle something so linear. I like to let my mind wander and learn things my own way at my own pace. That steady stream of incoming conversation is overwhelming if I don't let my mind wander. I never learn anything at a lecture or a meeting and I don't participate in them either. I just get bored and sit there. I learn better by doing and figuring things out for myself. When I was taking computer classes, I couldn't understand what the teachers were talking about a lot of the time, it only made sense when I logged on to a computer and could play around and figure everything out for myself. Doing things that way, I got A's in all my programming classes and was able to get a job.

Yes, this happens to me a lot in classes, meetings and lectures that are boring to me. But I think it happens to NTs equally.

What's different between NTs and me is when the gathering is about being as phony and shallow as possible, purposefully avoiding talk about anything meaningful. One of the worst is with female friends at a coffee-shop. I became free the day I stopped doing those. I'd get so restless I'd start to talk about meaningful things, which would spoil their enjoyment and they'd never invite me again. I've always been allergic to conversation that is just for the sake of talking. I need purpose.

Oh geez, 5 hour class, that is cruel and unusual, I never heard such a thing, horrible horrible horrible.

I noticed that people go on and on and on and wont' shut up when they are talking to me.

Maybe it's because I send out different non-verbal cues hoping that they would shut up, but they can't read them, because they are NT, and I am autistic, and teh cues don't match?

People just keep talking to me, and I have to cut them off in the middle of verbal streams to get them to stop or say anything myself.

It's like they all developed the stereotypical Asperger going on and on and on habit around me, what is going on?

People never go on and on and won't shut up when they are talking to me. The conversation just gets awkward and ends quickly and I walk away. I think I am good at not getting into boring conversations. I have occasionally had interesting conversations though.

I wish I were not a strange attractor for people's monologues.

Not to stray too far, but lately I have become increasingly aware of my emotional response to particular voices -- certain pitches, timbres, punctuations. I liken this sensitivity to an audio version of pheromone detection. Sometimes it's not what the person is saying, it's just their [horrible] voice. Of course, in groups, it's simply the problem of listening to 10 different radios broadcasting simultaneously. Or maybe what you experience has something to do with the speed of data transmission, which, in the events you describe, is moving at a torturous pace for you. We can speed read but speed hearing is a burnout.

Some people have really annoying voices.

The rate of information transfer through speaking is very low, so it's like all pain and no gain when listening to someone talk about topic, and worse if their voice is annoying.