Truly...
...Go with your gut feeling. Honestly. Take what comes by for what it is, treat a girl right, and if you feel like there's something special, bring it up in the best way you can think of. I really don't believe that there's any one "good way" to broach the subject, although there are certainly a few bad ones which I've heard about people using (springing on an unsuspecting new girlfriend during the first night together with handcuffs and a blindfold, for instance, is unlikely to be condusive to an enduring relationship). It probably sounds cheesy, but I'm a big believer in there being a great many layers of depth to the interactions between two people in a relationship. I think that if you and who-ever are meant to be (can't think of a better term than that, off the top of my head) then a little flexibility will be enjoyed. I know that I personally "get off," as it were, on my girlfriend expressing pleasure at what I'm doing, so if she, say, likes having her hands kissed, even though I'm not into hands particularly much, I will do that whenever possible, and I enjoy it because it's not her hands, or her feet, or her sensation, but it's Her, it's all part of Her.
...Y'know?
EDIT: FYI, I'm in the same "boat" that you are, with regards to "needing" tickling, and the most wonderful, most enduring relationship I was ever in was with a girl who didn't have a particular thing for feet and wasn't a ticklephile. She let me indulge, and I did what I could to satisfy her exquisitely tasteful and beautiful fantasies (being carried to the bedroom in a renaissance-era gown, was one).
God, I miss her.
)
).....
