Are you ticklish?

 

Are you ticklish?

Some people are extraordinarily, almost painfully, ticklish. Others do not respond at all to being tickled. Both reactions are entirely normal, so anybody who tells someone who is not ticklish, ‘No sense, no feeling’ is ill-advised.

Everyone in my family is extremely ticklish – everyone, that is, apart from me. I have never been rendered helpless with laughter at being tickled, though I love to hear young children giggling when they’re being tickled, and that makes me laugh.

I may have slightly ticklish feet, but I can control the reaction to tickling. I always have the sense that I’m disappointing everyone by not being ticklish, but I can’t pretend.

Even my dogs are ticklish, particularly their feet, but not my cats.

Is there any advantage to being ticklish? Is it better not to be ticklish? Does it matter? (No, not at all!)