Why do men never pay attention to what is said? (sarcasm)

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My excuse is not having any ears to speak of.

<------see

I must have a male brain. Or ADD. I often zone out completely in the middle of conversation.

I've found this to be true of people in general. People filter everything you say or write through a screen of personal biases and prejudices, subjective perceptions about your person and social class affiliation, your potential usefulness to them, and the nature of their current social relationship with you (friend/enemy/stranger).

If someone has decided that they don't like you for whatever reason, they will dismiss or attack everything you say, even if they would agree if it came from another source. Conversely, people are extremely likely to agree with and defend their friends, even when they know that their friend was wrong or out of line. It's the price we have to pay for being social-yet-competitive herd animals who can't simply exchange information with one another without playing a complex game of social chess for personal gain.

That being said, whenever I encounter someone who makes an effort to understand my point of view, and tries to respond to what I actually said instead of attacking me because they don't like my tone or my forum avatar or whatever, there is a very high chance that this person is a woman. Most gender stereotypes are pretty useless, but there appears to be some truth to the generalization that women have better communication skills.

What ?? He WAS listening!

That's what I thought at first but she said "tangerines" not "oranges", and for the second instance, she's already said she liked tangerines apart from kiwifruit.
If you imagine responding to what he said, you might understand it could be a bit frustrating.
"Yeah oranges are ok... Not as good as tangerines though"
"Apart from kiwifruit? ....TANGERINES!"

I'm afraid I probably make these kind of mistakes myself all the time.

Is this dynamic universally true for you? Communication/dialogue and the expression of thoughts to another is fraught with inherent difficulties, it is a miracle that we can do this at all. I sent a message to a friend last night and just re-read it this morning, it was littered with grammatical and spelling errors but I hope the overall gist got through.
The way I interpreted your original post was that you feel frustrated and misunderstood in your attempts to communicate and be understood, I think everyone on these boards can relate to that.
Generalizations like the one you made can end up offending many of the people that actually feel the same way. I have come too love some of the miscommunications we as aspies are prone too, through that love I find I can forgive myself for my own flaws.

Doh, I just got the irony of your post lol
I am laughably earnest sometimes

Oh, we pay attention, alright. We just don't care -- especially if the topic is about what you think is wrong with us, your feelings, our relationship, clothes and shoes, what your friends or co-workers said or did, ice dancing, periods and cramps, American Idol, sparkly vampires, your opinions on what constitutes the best or the worst of anything, or what you think we should do to be better people. Eliminate those topics from your repertoire, and we'll more likely care about what you have to say.

To be serious for a moment, if the person I am communicating with consistently shows they are not interested in what I have to say or what I think then what is the incentive for continuing to talk to them?

There is no incentive.

So, if you are a woman who is talking to a man who seems uninterested in what you are saying, then just stop talking!

Seriously, there really are a lot of topics that simply do not interest men, and most of them have to do with feelings, relationships, gossip, and all of that "constructive criticism" that women seem to feel driven to impart on the men in their lives.

none i guess. though if they show no interest it makes me wonder why they are continuing it

I think people continue conversing on auto pilot, because it is expected, and with men in particular because they enjoy hearing the sound of their voice or experiencing voicing their opinions to an audience.

I am really not sure how to keep justifying to myself investing time and energy into something that doesn't bring me any discernable benefit. I am really not that hungry for attention, and if you take that out of the equation - what is left? As an introvert, all interactions with people have a greater cost than benefit. I guess i am wondering if I may not be happiest as an actual hermit, even more than I am now. Or is there something fundamental I am failing to do which would make it possible for my interactions with others to be enjoyable?

Are you making it enjoyable for them?

Something that I've only recently learned is that appealing to someone else's primary motivations will keep their interest far longer than merely rambling on about one's own special interests.

Take a stereotypical "jock" or sports fan. He will be interested as long as you can converse on the topics of beer, team standings, player statistics, beer, the playoffs, player contracts, beer, cheerleaders, stadium seating, beer and Super Bowl snacks.

Did I mention 'beer' yet?

An RPG fan (like myself) would be interested in topics related to polyhedral dice, battle mats, miniatures, rule books, character sheets, game stores, adventure modules, and which revision of AD&D marked the boundary between not-so-bad and total suckage.

Computer geeks ... overclocking ... cooling systems ... video cards ... keyboard versus joysticks ...

If you want to keep a man's interest in a conversation, then talk about his interests. Otherwise, keep all that "girly / gossipy" stuff for your girl-friends -- that's what they're there for.

Seriously you are testing my patience, check in for marriage counselling if you have problems and stop projecting your crap on me, you are being zero helpful except to educate all of us about what a self absorbed bore you are and how your wife can't get through to you.

if i wasn't able to make it interesting for other people then nobody would have bothered talking to me in the first place and I wouldn't have the problem I posted about in the first place.

Actually, your problem does sound like a lack of interest of the tedious minutiae you seem to expect your audience to absorb (which is a very Aspie trait). What Fnord was saying is that conversation is not the same as holding forth and expecting your audience to be enrapt at all times.

so, tell me, what exactly are you basing that conclusion on? What did *I* say that indicates that I don't pay attention to what others are saying to me, as opposed to others not paying attention to what I say?

Additionally, it would be of great interest to me to learn which repetitive posts of mine lead you to conclude that I am in a habit of holding fort and expecting audience enrapture at all times?

Further, please explain why my interests are minutiae but the other party's interests are topics worth of consideration. Specially seen as that I never gave a single example of what the other people from my examples may have spoken about nor how.