For me, a big part of it is just knowing I've made someone feel better. One of the reasons I love my current job is because a big part of it is doing some counseling - I enroll people into stop smoking programs, and occasionally I get someone who is scared to try to quit, but simply has to. That's when I go into my "counselor" mode, especially if the person is crying.

One time I was enrolling an older lady who had tried a number of times to quit, but hadn't been able to make them stick. During the call she got more and more upset, until she was sobbing. I was desperately trying to think of something to comfort her, when I finally blurted out: "Do you know how proud I am of you?!? You actually sat down and dialed our phone number, reached out for our help. Do you know how many people can't even manage to do that?!?" Once she started looking at it that way - not as I can't quit, but as This is a journey/process and I'm getting help and guidance, she calmed down and by the end of the call was even feeling more optimistic.

Holding someone is nice (very!) but it isn't the be all and end all for me. When I'm comforting someone in person, what I want to do is make them feel safe enough to express their emotions freely, and THEN to help them feel better.

Roley wrote:

What matters to me is I'm being there for that person whether holding and hugging them personally or reading and listening to their problems. As long as I make someone feel better and made their day, I'd feel happy too. Physically comforting them is much more intimate but what I do is just virtually hug them or make them feel that I care and try to be always be there for them. On a side note, I think I know who you're talking about. But it doesn't matter.  

Hope this helps!

 
Woah wait a minute, you know who I'm talking about? I know you from somewhere, don't I...

I definitely like comforting people online or over the phone.  Sometimes I go to blahtherapy.com to be a listener for someone, and my boyfriend's cried to me over the phone a few times, which made me feel honored.  At the same time, however, (particularly with the crying on the phone bit), it's a little torturous to know the person is upset and I can't be there with them to hold them.  I guess it just depends on the situation

I get tremendous enjoyment from the comforting itself. It is intensely arousing for me to comfort someone even over the phone or texting/email/instant message. I will say that talking to my husband on the phone when he is upset or crying is extremely difficult for me. I feel such an overwhelming urge to hold him, and a helpless longing to fully comfort him, which I don't feel I can do adequately without holding/hugging/kissing him. Once, he was out of town and very upset by something, and those 24 hours between the upsetting event and his return were excruciating. I slept about two hours - woke up at 3:00 am and went downstairs to make him a big batch of cookies (his favorite). He was quite happy to eat them when he got home, and I took that afternoon off work and spent it in bed holding him while he cried a bit and napped.