Normally when I'm going somewhere there's a pair of earphones/headphones filling my ears with some sweet music pretty damn loudly. So I don't often hear the conversations around me. However if I'm sitting in a pub with people I know I often tend to focus on the person I am speaking to at that time by looking directly at them. This allows me to effectively follow the convo only with my eyes lip reading everything they say. In turn this free's my ears to hear what others around me are saying. Doing this on work nights out is a common thing with me, surprising how people haven't caught on to this before now. I think the only reason people are noticing this now is the fact I'm embroiled in a grievance with my company because of the fact that I finally got hard proof on the bullying taking place.