Tickling Dry Spell

[marzbarz]

I seem to get the idea that the older you get, tickling is only appropriate for close relationships or romantic relationships. It's been about a year and a half since my last relationship, where all the good tickles happened, and now I'm back to fantasies with internet friends. "Coming out" to people doesn't come to me easily either, even though I know it's not a big deal. I STILL can't even say the word "tickle" out loud without blushing.

How do you handle it? Where do you go to get it for just some sweet old fun and bonding? And do you agree that as an adult it gets harder to tickle someone without being/feeling creepy?

 

[skulnbone7]

I have to agree with you about how now tickling is more appropriate for close relationships or romantic relationships. I broke up with my girlfriend of 3 years about a year ago. When I was with her it was tickling all the time. Now that I'm single, like you, there is only tickling on the internet or DVDs. I am really missing it and I wonder if I ever get it back seeing how I now in my late 40's. I would love to try a session with a female ticklee but I don't have much money now a days and it's very hard for me to travel. It's hard to handle being alone with no one to tickle....

 

[marzbarz]

I have a friend over the internet who's into tickling and we've gotten really close. I've been wanting to find a way for us to finally meet. Have you ever traveled to see one of those friends before?

 

[skulnbone7]

No, I've never traveled to meet someone I meet here on the TMF. I have been to NEST and met a few fellow TMFers there. I'm not really close to anyone in the tickling scene, I put myself out there, but nothing has ever grown into something like a close friendship. You should really make an effort to meet this person, it very rare you make a good connection with someone who shares our love of tickling. Go for it!!!

 

[jonny86]

It does get a bit harder to start tickling people outside of close friendships and significant others as you get older. At the same time, however, that just tends to be how most physical and emotional bonding experiences or what have you tend to go as you get older. I'm 28, but I still have friends that I have tickle fights with and cuddle with. However, it is clear that as people get older, fewer people tend to do that stuff with friends. I don't know anyone who is in their 30s that really will be affectionate or playful with people that aren't their significant others.

 

[FoePaw]

For sure. If you're unattached, tickling opportunities become fewer once we enter into adult life. If you look at it from a numbers perspective, it makes sense. While we're in school, we're surrounded by hundreds, even thousands, of people our own age. And it's during a time when openly being playful and flirtatious is quite common. Playing 'kissing tag' in the workplace is more than frowned upon. But during grade school, such activities are normal. As we age, the types of activities that we engage in that can provide opportunities for touching and tickling become less and less, because they become less and less acceptible.

In my own experience, once high school ended, it was like... Shoooom!, tickling reached extinction levels compared to the frequency it had been occurring. And it just got more infrequent from there. Something that I had going for me that disappeared about the same time was my "built-in popularity". I was a preacher's kid growing up, so everyone at whatever church we were at knew me. A year after I finished high school, we moved away and my dad took a break from pastoring. Suddenly, I was just like any other 19 year old. I didn't have a reputation preceeding me so to speak. No one really cared who I was. Add to that my bent toward introversion, and it was a recipe for a social (and tickling) wasteland. Not that I knew it at the time, but looking back, it's quite apparent.

But that's just my experience. There's probably someone here who will say their tickling experiences actually increased when they got older. There are so many things that contribute to what each of us experiences in life that no simple explanation will do for all of us as to why something is the way it is. Our experiences are way too nuances and complex for a one-size-fits-all answer. But there are still some things that are common experiences for all of us, and fit within the framework of what it's like to get older. ie... kissing tag is okay when you're 8, not so much with your co-workers when you're 25. And tickling, and where it fits in as we get older, also has a similar pattern of acceptance. As we get older, it's right and appropriate that we make good decisions about how and with whom we will physically interact. If we're acting as we should as adults, the natural outcome is, unfortunately, less tickling. And yes, that sucks.

 

[jonny86]

But that's just my experience. There's probably someone here who will say their tickling experiences actually increased when they got older. T

Ah yes, this is something I can attest to! Tickling being less acceptable as you grow up really can reduce the amount that one gets to do, but on the other hand, as in my case, the more you open up and try to make it less "weird" in your own mind, the more opportunities you have. When you're a teenager, every odd desire one might have has its "oddness" amplified because, ya know, you're a teenager. As you get older, you realize that everyone else has their own weird shit too and that very few people are realistically going to judge you for your desires. I mean, if you look around these forums, you'll find plenty of people who have "come out" in their adulthood to find that people just didn't care or didn't judge them. The ones who had bad reactions typically either came out to someone who had just the most ridiculous, illogical reaction or the person coming out was just generally creepy and one could simply imagine that they probably "came out" in a creepy manner.

 

[marzbarz]

I actually had an acting class here in college, and there was a fun improv-y thing we did where I had to fight with a girl to get an acceptance letter or love letter I had gotten in the mail. It was fun and happy, so I decided to tickle her in order to get her hands off it. the reaction from the class and the instructors, even, was "What?! Who TICKLES people anymore?" Though they thought it was entertaining, it was kind of disappointing that that was the reaction. And even when I do find little fun situations that I can put it in, in my head this is the reaction that I think that I will get, if not direct judgement.