My coping mechanism is to try to control the conversation. If your mind is wandering because you're bored with something your friends are talking about, try to change the conversation to something more interesting. If your friends consistently want to talk about topics you don't find interesting, you should probably find new friends or at least more variety.
That's a dangerous one, too. It depends on the group, friends, yes. Absolutely. Or people who you know are with you on that and you can detect that quickly as in OK that's the kind of person whose throat I might be at on HN. Excellent. Let the games begin.
But recently started in with the questions and so on with some people who didn't want anything questioned all that much. Understandable as, frankly, it's not all that relaxing to have someone questioning you who's obviously trying to sort of challenge your beliefs and opinions. Not everyone wants to talk through or possibly think through things and I regret it a little. The problem is that these people were comfortable with a certain amount of discussion intensity but there was a line. And I crossed it. It was a little tense. Ugh.
And it's not about disagreement. I mis-characterized that a bit. It's about taking it up a notch in intensity.
It isn't that the conversation is boring - it is more similar to the sensation of not having slept for 36h and struggling to keep my eyelids open. If I was rested I'd find it easy to concentrate, and I'd probably actually find the conversation very interesting.
