To think hot tubs are awkward

[Cinderellla]

A friend keeps inviting me round to hers for a meal and evening, I keep making excuses because she wants me to join her and her husband in the hot tub in their garden. I don’t know why but I just find it really awkward. The hot tub is quite small and I just imagine it would feel like sharing a bath with her and her husband😳. I also am not 100% body confident and the thought of wondering around her garden/house in a bikini also makes me cringe (plus it’s really bloody cold at the moment!)…🫣

Am I being unreasonable to feel awkward about this? If I do go is there any hot tub etiquette I should know about?

Mine is my greatest pleasure- use it every day. This time of year it’s amazing

Sit in somebody’s re-warmed chlamydia soup.
Think I’ll give it a miss thanks. 🤮🤮

I'd say no because of the likelihood of lack of cleanliness.

Give hot tubs a wide berth. Hardly anyone maintains them properly.

A colleague and I were asked to advise a business setting up a glamping pod with hot tub business. They insisted they were not going to use chlorine as guests would not want the swimming pool smell. They also refused to follow the guidelines and clean them properly between lets, they were just going to change the water. The studies that show what lives/can be found in the heating and circulation systems living on people soup make for grim reading 😖

Just tell her you get recurrent cystitis so you have to avoid them.

Hot tub with your partner or a gang of mates on holiday, fine. I'm not getting in someone else's sex pond.
A friend of mine has one in his garden. It's nicknamed The Gene Pool because of the amount of bodily fluids in there.

Eww! We have a hot tub and the only time anyone else is allowed to use it is when a water change is due. I don’t trust other people to be hygienic enough to allow them in. if they are regular ‘sharers’ you have no idea what is in there.

It’s hard enough maintaining chemical balance without worrying about whether they triple rinsed their swimsuit to remove detergent or have showered correctly with non residue gel /soap.

I think sharing a hot tub with your husband and kids is fine, or female friends but I wouldn't do it with friends and their partners. It's like sharing a bath. Just no.

Absolutely not.

This is very weird. Why is her husband anything to do with it? Surely if anything it would be just you and your friend?

It sounds like she's trying to involve you in a threesome. I wouldn't even be going for dinner.

I wonder where the car keys are going?

We have a hot tub (not even sorry) but it’s family only.
I can’t imagine wanting a neighbour in there, it’s weird

How did the hot tub come up in conversation? If she said “Would you like to come for dinner on XYX? We’ve got a hot tub so if you fancy it, bring a swimsuit” then it’s fine to say that you don’t fancy the hot tub but would love to come for dinner, thank you.

If she is weirdly insistent about the hot tub, then that would put me off.

Theres no need to make up a lie. It’s more polite to say that you just don’t want to use her hot tub.

If she’s just got it, it’s possible that a bunch of people have said “Ooooh lucky you! Bagsy my turn!” and it hasn’t occurred to her that some people think “Ew”.

I honestly don't get the appeal of them. I like a warm bath. I like sitting outside. But I really don't need to do both things at the same time? And I definitely don't want to do it with other people, especially my neighbours!.

(Appreciate we are all different, wouldn't life be boring if we all liked the same things blah blah)

Just say no. I find them incredibly tacky so definitely avoid!

OH and I enjoy our hot tub but wouldn’t expect a friend to join us.

I have one - a proper hard shell one - not a blow up one from the range .
I wouldn’t want anyone in my tub apart from me and my other half I don’t even let family use it .
We shower and use it naked and we maintain it meticulously.
There is no way I want someone with make up on and not showered in my tub .

They would fuck up the chemical balance and we would have to shock it to get it back to balance or used far more chemicals than we usually do

So yeah I think they are weird about asking you .

I stayed in a traditional hotel in Japan. We had a bath in our room but there was also two single sex onsen (hot tub type jobs) on the roof of the hotel. DH didn’t fancy it but I went up one evening. You get undressed in a locker room and then shower before getting in. I was the only one there. A view of the stars, plants, a small waterfall. It was lovely. Then I heard the door go. I looked up and a woman walked into the locker room. The was tall, slender, beautiful with ebony skin. I looked at my short, fat, pasty self and left while she was in the shower.

You couldn’t pay me enough to go in a hot tub. Especially with other people. Bath with friends! 🤮

I wouldn’t even consider one that only I set foot in, but I can’t even stand having a bath, I don’t like sitting in water.

I've used a large communal one at a sports club but they definitely smell of chlorine as do swimming pools, apparently women release urine without realising it. My df died from legionnaires disease so no I wouldn't use one.

I've used them on holiday but having read this thread will give them a swerve. Are hot springs as unhygienic? I'm thinking of Banff in Canada and Budapest and places like that.

I’ve used a big one since I was a child. It is chlorinated, so no different to a swimming pool.

Lynn these are sex people really made me laugh! 😅

No more so than swimming in seas or rivers I would have thought.