More ticklish with people you care about?

So I'll keep it short. I've hired people to tickle me before, and while I do laugh, the results are disappointing. However when my last two girlfriends tickle me I go completely batshit crazy. Anybody else expierence this?

I've had similar experiences. While anyone can tickle me and make me laugh, when I was with my gf she could get me laughing like crazy, even though I don't think she was very good at tickling in the sense of her techniques.

I believe that this is, in part, a matter of trust. People are more ticklish when being tickled by somebody that they trust as opposed to a stranger.

Makes sense. They're the people you're comfortable showing your weakness to. Other people would make you defensive and less prone to 'let go' and 'give in'.

Absolutely. When my wife decides to tickle me, I'm a basket case. I don't know how much of it is straight-up psychological, or whether it has anything to do with trust or lowered defenses, or how much of it is just that over time she's developed an intimate familiarity with every spot on my body and how it responds to various qualities of stimuli -- but the ticklish effect of her fingertips is vastly more incapacitating than anyone else's.

Yes my husband not only tickles me the best, but also gets the best reactions out of me. I not only trust him, but I feel safe, secure, and relaxed with him. Not to say I don't react when others tickle me, but it's never the way I react with him.

I think it is a bit different for me. I am very ticklish and have never been able to just give in and enjoy it. I come nearest to it with people that I am very close to and trust - but even then it has to be someone I'm really close to, like a lover. And then I would say that I can cope with it a little bit better because in a way I feel less ticklish. It is when I get attacked by someone that I am less close to that the ticklishness is at panic fight-or-flight levels.

I think a huge part of my ticklishness is about the psychology of a situation as much as the physical sensitivity, and that is the deciding factor for me. My instinct to defend my physical boundaries seems to be above average, and I experience tickling as an invasion that is unbearable. I don't know why. I am not aware of any trauma in my past that would explain it. And in other ways, with close family, I am actually a very tactile and physically affectionate person.