If I learned one thing in my life, then that men don't get hints.
I think it's more a case of "that thing that is perfectly obvious to me may not be perfectly obvious to anyone who is not me." When you leave something open to being guessed, people will guess in ways you never expected. Because, surprise, everyone thinks differently - it's just that a lot of women don't seem to get this, and assume everyone thinks the way they do. So they get frustrated when something that should be "obvious" doesn't get picked up on.
Here's a good example. I was interested in a friend of a friend. I've been hearing women complain for
years about guys who "didn't get the hint" when these women, who didn't share the same level of romantic interest, ignored them when they (the men) attempted to use social networking sites to interact with them. They'd never block or unfriend/turn down the friend requests of these guys, mind; they'd just never reply to their Tweets/Pokes/whatever and complain that they couldn't understand why the guy didn't just leave them alone when it was "obvious" that they weren't interested. Now, I did go the route of friending this woman after meeting her at a party, but my suspicions were aroused when she didn't really interact with me much. I started to wonder if I was one of those guys who didn't "get the hint". So, I unfriended her after I invited her out and she never answered, then later made a comment about someone "propositioning" her.
End of story, right? Wrong. When discussing this anecdote with the aforementioned mutual friend, she commented, "Derpina was a little confused/insulted when you unfriended her after she didn't write back." I told her about the proposition comment. She shrugged and said, "That wasn't about you. It was about someone else."
But, yeah. My fault for not being psychic, I suppose. Men. We just don't get hints.
EAsy answer Rhiannon??? Maybe you can try being cheeky and expose your ticklish areas often? BE cheeky then say" what are you going to do about it?" If he resorts to tickling you then it is definate! You don't need to tell hime tooquickly that you like it if you enjoy it, just encourage it and he will bite!! BTW hinting and tricking around is exciting!!!
New TMF drinking game - take a shot everytime Vernon types "cheeky".
In all siriusness, though, normally I tell people who think that "doing this will make you look like you're exposing your ticklish spots" is kinda stupid, because only tickle fetishists are on the lookout for people "exposing their spots". In this case, though, if you're trying to figure out if he has a fetish, then it's perfectly acceptable. If he's One of Us, he'll bite.
Or, he'll be smart enough to bang two brain cells together and realize that tickling you turns you on, so he's doing it for you. It's a really tricky thing that a lot of people who enjoy tickling aren't tickle fetishists in the strictest sense of the word... I'm seeing it a lot in the local gathering scene out here. We've recently gotten a substantial influx of BDSMers who have discovered tickling can be part of overall sensation play, and show up to our events. Which is fine, I suppose, but the experience still leaves me feeling hollow. It's hard to explain, but it's easy to tell they're not Like Us, and they Don't Get It. From my POV, anyway.
Otherwise, yes; 99.9% of all relationship issues can be solved by, horror, talking to your partner. Hinting, hiding, guessing games... it's all bullshit, and it just leads to frustration when your partner isn't psychic.
