>"Perking up" when another person's uncomfortable emotions come to the fore and steering the conversation away teaches them that their problems are their own, and that their full selves are excluded while a partial self (with unpleasantness filtered out) is welcome.
I suspect that the author meant this in non-intimate situations, however I agree with your general trend of reasoning.
These types of people are comforting to the extreme, I would assume that would (technically) make them satisfying friends and lovers. I'd love to see a clarification of your use of unsatisfying here.
People who like to dodge awkward conversations, and who are skilled at it, will dodge the awkward conversations you really want to have with them. In the case of romantic relationships, they'll dodge the conversations you desperately NEED to have with them, and you'll get stuck in a hopeless rut where they repeatedly make you feel like a problem is being addressed when it really isn't. You might not blame them for it right away, but believe me, the results are unsatisfying.
On a not entirely unrelated note, people will also use empathy to respond to requests for things. You can spend years with someone before you learn that expressing empathy is their way of avoiding saying "no." (You'll figure this out much faster if it's a working relationship instead of a romantic one.)
Empathy can be a powerful, powerful force, and it can act on either party.
I suspect that the author meant this in non-intimate situations, however I agree with your general trend of reasoning. These types of people are comforting to the extreme, I would assume that would (technically) make them satisfying friends and lovers. I'd love to see a clarification of your use of unsatisfying here.