Well, empathy is a word with a definition, not a directive as to what is helpful to do. Empathy is the ability to replay another person's state in your mind so

Well, empathy is a word with a definition, not a directive as to what is helpful to do. Empathy is the ability to replay another person's state in your mind so that you can understand it. It's not directly connected to what you do with that information, though. You can just as much use empathy to manipulate someone since it lets you model mental states well. In your particular example, if what you say is true, having empathy would mean understanding that the person probably wouldn't care for you to tell them that you understand. :P