Does anyone else forget whole conversations even when you're trying to listen??

You are not alone in this. In ADHD, the issue is often not effort but working memory. You can be genuinely trying to pay attention, but if your brain does not encode the information properly in the moment, it never fully stores. Twenty minutes later, it feels like it vanished. This is not about caring less. It is about how attention and memory circuits interact. Distraction, internal thoughts, or emotional stress can interrupt encoding. Many adults feel embarrassed by this, but it is a very common ADHD experience and very real neurologically.