So, my boyfriend was drinking last night for New Year's, and when he drinks he tends to open up more (he's normally very reserved).  Well, we were sitting on the kitchen floor talking to another guy at the party who we didn't really know that well.  Somewhere along the conversation, that guy admitted to having lots of issues with depression and the like.  My boyfriend has also struggled with that, and being the sweetheart he is immediately gave the other guy his number and started trying to give him advice and make him feel better about himself.  About 20 minutes or so in, the conversation turned to their personal stories.  My boyfriend summed his up fairly briefly, and the other guy started telling a more detailed account of his own, supplemented by input from another friend of his who had joined us.  A couple of times during lulls in the conversation, my boyfriend started talking, and I could tell he was trying to talk about more details of his own story, but every time, one of the other guys started talking at the same time and my boyfriend stopped.  They obviously weren't interrupting him on purpose, and I could tell I was the only one that even knew what my boyfriend was trying to talk about.  At one point when he seemed to give up on trying to talk about himself, I looked over and saw that he was fighting back tears.  He was staring down at nothing, and his lips were curled in like they were the last time I saw him get choked up.  I reached over and caressed his hand, and he looked up and told me quietly (under the other guys' conversation) that he was okay.  I nodded and left my hand resting casually on his knee, but after a minute he took it between both of his and held it for the rest of the conversation.  We aren't really the kind of couple that holds hands a lot, so I could tell it meant something to him.

Our conversation was interrupted by the countdown, and after that things got silly and lighthearted again for a while.  At one point he did start talking about his mentality when he had been depressed, though he did so much less emotionally and had a hard time getting out what he wanted to say because of interruptions by a few of our more hyper drunken friends.  After a few minutes, he abandoned the somber topic and joined them in their fun.  It was still kind of hard for me to hear about him feeling that way, though, and I wanted to show him some affection.  A while later, he and a friend talked me into driving them to a nearby gas station for food (I don't drink, but I was getting tired and wanted to stay in for the rest of the night).  We were all joking around, so when I agreed to take him, I said, "Don't you ever doubt how much I love you," and pulled him into a silly hug.  Once he was up against me, I murmured, "Really, though," in a more serious voice, and he stopped wiggling around in the hug.  We held each other for a good minute or two, and then he pulled away enough to kiss me quickly and bury his face in my shoulder.  I held him there for a minute with a hand on the back of his head before we broke apart.  When we finally did, I noticed that his eyes looked watery and a little pink, but we were standing in the middle of everyone so I didn't say anything more and we soon went back to enjoying the party like normal.

Sorry that this kind of thing is about as far as I ever get with my boyfriend when he's emotional.  I'm still waiting for him to hit the point where he feels comfortable completely breaking down in front of me, and I'm sure the entire party full of other people didn't help any.  Since he was obviously hurting a bit last night, I do plan on checking in with him sometime later this week whenever we get some alone time (even though he's been doing pretty well with his depression for the past year or so, I still like to ask him about it every couple months, just in case), so maybe we'll be able to talk things out a little more fully and he'll feel more comfortable opening up while we're alone.