Blind Mole-Rat

I posted a question yesterday on Facebook, asking my friends about which tattoo artists are doing good work in the area. I have plans for my "freedom tattoo" of a squid fighting a whale, and I do not want to entrust it to a hack. It's a tattoo I have wanted to get for a while, but something held me back from actually committing to it. I know that a contributing factor was that the ex did not like girls who had "lots of tattoos", but also because I never felt like I really needed it. I am feeling a need to mark this time in a unique way, to do something just for me that will be with me forever. Roughly an hour after I posted the question, I received a text from my friend Mike telling me that he was going to Boston the following day. I assumed, as I usually do, that he was telling me this to let me know that he wouldn't be able to hang out with me this week, so I responded with "Boo you whore!".
It took several hours and two more explanatory texts from Mike for me to see that he was asking me if I wanted to go with him because he was going to make an appointment with a great tattoo artist. I am seeing more and more that I tend to do this- I assume wrong and miss what is right in front of my face. I have a lack of presumption that has become a flaw in my character, to the point where I seem as imperceptive as a blind mole rat. I knew, for example, that my ex-husband was unhappy, but I assumed it was because of our finances or his desires to further his education that kept getting sidetracked. The week before he told me he wanted a divorce, he handed me his wedding band and told me he didn't need it anymore. I responded by telling him to quit fucking around and put it back on. The day we had the conversation that ended it all, I had just made him cupcakes. It took him beating me over the head with the truth- that he was not in love with me anymore- to get me to see what his problem was. I float along, not picking up what's being laid down, and I have a feeling this has lead to a few missed opportunities in my life. How many times have I told myself that I am misreading signals when I have actually been on the right track?
I don't think I was always like this. I was more of a risk-taker when I was younger, queen of the "I like you, do you like me?" note in middle school and always creating a flirtation between myself and some male friend of mine that was entirely imagined on my part. It had to be the constant flow of rejection that made me a little more conservative in my approach to people. The problem with this is that no one ever says what they want or need from you anymore, unless they are your closest friends. My closest friends are crystal-clear with me. If I am pissing them off, they tell me, and if they need a favor, they ask. There is not a lot of beating around the bush. This is all part-in-parcel with my inability to recognize flirting when it happens. Flirting is all about subtlety, and I am neither subtle, nor am I good at picking up on subtlety. When I flirt, I am about as subtle as a flying brick. The fact that I like someone is written all over my face, and not just because my ears turn bright red. I send out all of that energy hard and aggressive, because life is just too short to half-ass it, but when someone sends it back I don't see it. I am a daredevil when it comes to saying how I feel, but a Republican when someone hints around at how they feel. Unless someone comes right out and says, "I would like to make out now," I have no idea what they are driving at.
I have been trying and trying to get back on the horse, but being a total pussy about it at the same time. Instead of exploring a flirtation I know is real and feels like it could lead to something, I string myself along on another dude who seems to have zero interest in anything other than a parking-lot make-out. I love a parking lot make-out, and who doesn't, but I am not in my early twenties anymore and I would like to have sex before I forget what it is. I am now worried that my lack of astuteness is going to lead me to my own destruction, that I am going to pursue this physical relationship until he has to stare me in the face and say, "I do not wish to fuck you. Stop trying, please."
For now I will just keep waiting around, take the make-outs where I can get them, and try to keep it light. And try to recognize what the hell a friend is doing when they suggest I go with them to meet one of the best tattooists in the state.