Men and women have tendencies and subculture, sure. But they're not mutually unintelligible if you make even a little effort to try and understand the other side as fundamentally human people. For example, by listening to them and taking their positions seriously (even if the specific situation does not call for believing every factual claim).

I think we mostly agree here, just with slightly different framing.

That is unfortunately the tendency for men, yeah.

Who knows, lol. But I'm more than happy to engage with people who disagree, so long as it remains relatively civil.

I've had plenty of gender-coded miscommunication with my wife over the years. But that's far, far outweighed by more individual differences (like neurotypical v neurodivergent, mismatched communication habits, and mismatched expectations from how we were raised. Hell even just regional differences.

And when it comes to the other married guys I know, I've provided advice (upon request) that basically boiled down to (1) you don't "win" a marriage, (2) treat her like a partner not an adversary (even if she's treating you adversarially for now), and (3) be open and vulnerable when you can. It's amazing how many of them have just... never once heard that advice from anyone else their whole life. Wild out here.

true, just be gay instead.

Do you think that's what's happening (both in my example but also the OP greentext)? That they're admitting they have trouble communicating?

I could see a literal interpretation of "I don't understand women" as a standalone sentence being reasonably interpreted that way, sure. But given the context, I think that's really unlikely.