I have little to no pity for anybody who keeps asking for it without showing any signs of making any serious effort to solve their problems though. As a general rule, you have my pity if you got screwed up because of unforeseeable circumstances, but very little if you do it to yourself. I might yield if it were a one-off incident, but not if you regularly screw things up for yourself and expect nothing but pity. The only exception is when I think that it is personally beneficial for me to just play along, or rather, detrimental for me not to.
This is the type of person I happen to be dealing with right now; I'll say something like, "Well, I hope you feel better" if they refuse to talk about what is bothering them, but when it's a constant bad mood + negative side comments, I start threads like these.
You can't exactly take it personally if somebody doesn't want to confide in you with their problems. That's arrogant and victimizing. It may take a lot of effort for you to ask somebody what's wrong, but the people to whom you ask it don't know this. You can't expect them to feel honored just because you show a little compassion.
You're very right. Read my response to visaisahero, and the situation is put a little more in context. I can see how my post would make one assume I think this way in every situation, which is the opposite of how I think; sorry for not clarifying this from the start.
You find it annoying that others are subtle, but did you ever stop to think that those who are subtle find it annoying that you value blunt, direct communication?
That's a really good question; I need to think about that.
You should realize that "nothing" and "I don't know" are indirect ways of saying "I don't want to talk about it." Not everybody is as straightforward and blunt as NTPs, and not everybody wants to be.
More context: an INFP friend was saying she was having a bad day, walking slowly, saying she was depressed, wallowing in her gloom; I asked what was wrong, and she said she didn't know. I asked our ESFP friend what was going on, and she said, "a lot of things." I believe I felt I was left 'out of the loop'- that I wasn't a reliable person to talk about things with, especially since I've spent a lot of time with both of these people discussing personal troubles of my own. Jaded is a good word to describe how I felt.
After thinking it through more: if she wants to leave me out of her personal life, fine. She won't hear of mine, either. Maybe that's a selfish prospect. I don't know. Give/give relationships don't happen with me anymore- also, I believe if she asked me the same question while I was in a bad mood, she would say, "if you don't talk about it, it's not going to get solved!"
I feel the only way to cope with people is to not take them seriously.
