the power of the bubble bath | musing no. 43

what men call softness is often just stillness they’ve never learned to sit in.

for most of my life, i thought bubble baths were ridiculous.

as an american man, you’re trained to view stillness as weakness. you shower fast, you move faster, and you never waste time sitting in warm water. i used to tell myself it was about efficiency. truthfully, it was about control.

i’ve never liked being wet. maybe it traces back to football—cold, muddy practices that made water feel like punishment. a shower was something to endure, not something to enjoy. i’d finish quick, shock my system with a burst of cold, and call it discipline.

then one night years ago, a woman—ukrainian—asked if i’d take a bath with her.

every instinct in me said no. but the way she looked at me, calm and expectant, made it impossible to refuse.

and that night changed how i saw intimacy forever.

it wasn’t sexual, at least not at first. it was something deeper. slower. she poured champagne. lit a single candle. turned on soft music that filled the silence without breaking it. we sat there—skin to skin, no rush, no roles—and for the first time, i understood that closeness doesn’t always need motion.

you can be completely naked, and still not be about sex.

sometimes, the most intimate thing you can do is stop pretending to be busy.

since then, i’ve learned that eastern european women, at least the ones i’ve known, love their bubble baths. it’s a ritual for them—part self-care, part ceremony. but what struck me most was how much *presence* it demanded. you can’t hide behind distraction in a bath. there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to perform. you either show up emotionally, or you don’t belong there.

years later, i introduced dabatha to it.

she was the first american woman i’d ever share that ritual with.

i’ll save the full story for **red room no.7**, but let’s just say it involved a portable tub, some questionable plumbing, and one unforgettable valentine’s weekend. i went full engineer—spliced into pipes, tested temperatures, timed the lighting—because by then i understood what that experience meant. it wasn’t just a bath. it was a blueprint for connection.

because when it’s with the right person, a bubble bath becomes something sacred.

she’s in front of you, back against your chest, her head resting just below your chin. your arms around her, fingers tracing the surface of her skin under the water. she exhales, and it’s like the entire room softens with her. you don’t need to talk. you just *feel.*

in that stillness, you start to learn things about love that words can’t teach.

how silence can hold more trust than any promise.

how vulnerability isn’t about exposure—it’s about surrender.

and that’s what most men miss.

they think intimacy lives in performance.

it doesn’t. it lives in *presence.*

the right woman will never be impressed by how much you can do.

she’ll be moved by how deeply you can *be.*

so yeah—bubble baths aren’t soft. they’re confrontational.

they strip away the noise, the armor, the excuses.

they demand attention, patience, and touch without agenda.

and when you share that space with someone who’s earned it, you’ll understand:

it’s not about the water.

it’s about what you both choose to let go of inside it.

red room no.7 will go deeper into that story—the engineering disaster, the laughter, and how that weekend became one of the most unexpectedly intimate experiences of my life.

for now, just remember:

sometimes, the most masculine thing a man can do

is slow down enough to feel.

— author

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