Silas,

The man in your hypothetical is not trying to understand Alice. He's trying to dominate the conversation. He may not consciously understand what he's doing, but that's what's happening.

Alice saying "Nothing" implicitly includes the message "I don't want to talk about it right now." Alice is engaging in a different relationship failure mode if (1) the issue is important to her, but (2) she never finds a time to discuss it. But that failure mode is independent and distinct from the failure mode of the man in the hypothetical.

EDIT: Ok, dominate has a lot of connotations that I didn't intend. Let me restate: Bob is not trying to understand Alice. He's trying to win the conversation. As others discuss both, the thesis that Alice was also trying to win the conversation is plausible. But I don't rate it likely without more information about Alice.