I state my needs clearly and honestly.

"It's cold in here" is not a request. "Would you close the window" is. The gap between those two has caused an enormous amount of unnecessary trouble.

Hinting feels safer because it stays deniable. If nothing happens, you have not technically been refused. The cost is that you get to be quietly disappointed instead of actually helped.

Clearly is the demanding word here, and honestly is more demanding still, because it means knowing what you want before you open your mouth. Often you don't, and the not-knowing is the real delay.

Take the thing you have been hinting at this week and put it in a sentence with a verb in it.