The goal of this short paper is to open a discussion on the affective potential of nonanthropomorphic soft social robots. Bringing together engineering and design with feminist science and technology studies (FSTS), we seek to foster a re-vision of the relation between affects, materials, shape, and function in social robotics. To do so, we firstly present an auto-ethnographic encounter with a soft robot and describe and analyze the affective experience of this encounter. Secondly, we contextualize this narrative and analysis in relation to outcomes of human-robot interaction studies on soft social robots. Finally, drawing on these insights, we discuss the nature and potential of affective and social relations with soft robots that go beyond the anthropocentric interaction scheme traditionally applied in social robotics.