Okay, I'll keep this in mind, but is this potentially a hearing problem when I can hear people whispering to me 1-on-1?

Your comments sound as if I wrote it myself =) But wait, do you have Asperger's? If so, I should really get checked.

Growing up, my social skills were fairly slow to develop, but at this point in my life, I've practiced enough to actually be quite socially savvy with people. I can easily weave humour, emotional intelligence, facial expressions, deep comprehension, etc into my conversations. I'm always making new friends.

But, I've never been able to handle environments with too much stimulus (bars/clubs), when someone's voice is overlapping with a dozen other voices in the room: I can't understand them. When there's constant noises, light displays, many events around me: I feel a sort of confusion / cognitive dissonance.

This is not a matter of introversion/extroversion in my case: my ability to comprehend people in these environments just drops. Sometimes to the point where I seem deaf. However in 1-on-1 situations, there's no issues. I can be quite extroverted, an initiator.