with a good portion of women I speak to is,I end up defending what I said versus responding to how it made them feel. Those are two completely different conversations.

examples not all encompassing:

I'll say "it's not good to lead someone on if the feelings aren't there" and the response is "women aren't obligated to sleep with you." I never said that. But that's what landed.

Or in relationships ,I say "I'm tired and don't want to go out" and somehow that becomes "so spending time with me is exhausting?"

The pattern is consistent: I'm communicating directly, it's being processed emotionally, and then I'm responding to an interpretation of what I said rather than what I actually said.

What's interesting is women will often confirm this themselves ,I've argued multiple times that direct communication is more efficient and been told it requires too much emotional work. Ill say making a list of what needs done around the house beats expecting someone to intuit it, and that framing gets pushback too.

But here's the thing,indirect feeling-based communication isn't lower effort. It's higher effort with worse results. You're doing more work to be less understood.