When You Wanna be Out but Not Seen...
It’s June. Or maybe July. In Portland, who even knows when Pride is or how long it lasts? Still, your group chats are a minefield of rooftop ragers, warehouse raves, and someone’s friend’s girlfriend’s cousin’s queer BBQ that you agreed to “maybe swing by” fully knowing you will not.
You keep thinking Shouldn’t I be out there? Doing the body thing? The talking thing? Letting some soft-armed stranger with a birth chart and a Bluetooth speaker wreck me?
Or… hear us out…what if you did Pride your way? What if you skipped the crowds, ghosted the RSVP, and emerged from the month(s) spiritually intact, emotionally hydrated, and slightly feral. In, like, a hot, grounded way?
This is queer joy in its most tender, most anti-social form: 15 gloriously solo sapphic activities that ask nothing of you except mild effort and a strong sense of aesthetic delusion. You don’t need a plus-one. You are the plus-one. Because sometimes, the gay agenda is just: disappear a little. Not into the closet—don’t be dramatic. Just into your own vibe.
Go ahead. Be the mysterious lesbian in the corner of your own life. Pride looks good on you. Especially from a safe distance.
1. Hike Alone But Gay
Leif Erikson Trail or Angel’s Rest Hike
Throw on a flannel, cue up your favorite Sapphic playlist, and go full Oregon Trail. If someone tries to say "hey" on the trail, just point to your headphones. If you do Angel’s Rest, grab a post-hike lunch at Sugarpine Drive-In without leaving your car. Or Friendship Kitchen is just down the hill from the Leif Erikson trailhead for Vietnamese/Singaporean takeout.
2. Lone Pride Thrifting on a Tuesday
Find the gayest button-down in a 10-mile radius
Go to Hello Sunshine or maybe some suburban Goodwill where no one’s trying to be hot. Look for paint-splattered overalls, anything someone's grandma embroidered, or a fit that’s hauntingly cargo-adjacent.
3. Picnic for One
Lone blanket at the Bluffs at least six hours before sunset
Bring a book you won’t finish, cheese you won’t share, and a big hat to keep people from trying to strike up conversations.
Bonus points if you bring one of those UV sun umbrellas to protect your new tattoos...and your privacy.
4. The DIY Queer Film Fest (aka Your Couch)
Stream every sapphic movie where at least one character survives
Lineup includes: Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Watermelon Woman, and That One Episode of Xena.
You’re the jury. You’re the audience. You’re not wearing pants.
5. Get Fruity, Solo.
Traverse the Hood River Fruit Loop
Spend a quiet day in the sun picking cherries, blueberries, or whatever's in season—just you, your tote bag, and the gentle breeze of the Gorge winds in Summer. Then, immediately ruin it by eating four pounds of fruit in your car like a feral raccoon with something to prove.
Spend the next 36 hours confined to your home…spiritually and gastrointestinally.
6. Butch Skills, Browser Tab
Take a metalworking class… on YouTube
Spend four hours watching a Swedish woman forge a knife in total silence. Tell everyone you’re “getting into blacksmithing.”
Never touch a tool. But do start googling belt sanders like it’s foreplay.
7. One-Handed Self-Care
Treat yourself at She Bop
Slip into She Bop solo like the mysterious perv you are. Say you’re “just browsing,” then confidently purchase a toy that plugs in, pulses, and promises transcendence. Go home, light a candle, and ghost everyone for the rest of the day.
Pride means being your own pillow princess.
8. Solo Dyke Seaside Pilgramage
Disappear into Manzanita for 48 mysterious hours
Book a tiny rental. Build a sandcastle in the shape of a Uhaul. Roast vegan marshmallows on the beach while wearing that hoodie from 2007 that knows all your secrets.
Speak to no one. Especially not the other lesbian couple you clocked immediately but pretend not to see.
9. “I Support Pride From the Shadows” Cake
Bake (or buy) a rainbow cake while listening to your favorite queer pod.
Eat it with a fork directly out of the pan while listening to the Handsome Podcast or 2 Dykes and a Mic. Or if you don’t wanna bake, buy a slice of the Rainbow Mille Crêpe Cake from Champagne Poetry.
Don’t post it. Don’t take pics. You are the celebration.
10. Gay Gaze
Quiet weekday visit to the Portland Art Museum
Stare longingly at oil paintings of tragic women instead of making eye contact with actual people. Bonus: perfect lighting for dramatic selfies with zero human interaction.
11. Queer Creature Comforts
Hit up Fang! or Salty's for “essentials.”
Spend $60 on artisanal treats for your emotionally needy pets. Tell the cashier it’s enrichment. You know it’s codependency. Snag some catnip or a garish toy labeled “for aggressive chewers.”
12. Sad Dyke Bookstore Tour
Browse Bishop & Wilde, Powell’s, or Mother Foucault’s like a haunted intellectual
Buy three zines along with copies of Rubyfruit Jungle and Stone Butch Blues. Then, go cry in your car while feeling deeply seen. (The car crying is the activity.)
13. Gay Growth
Embrace your cottagecore era with some greenery.
Head to Portland Nursery or One Green World, grab a lavender start or a tomato plant, and pretend you’re just a chill gay with a green thumb (not someone who names their basil). Get flirty with your greenery and whisper sweet nothings to the soil like “you’re gonna look so hot the last week of July.”
14. Write a Zine. Don't Share It.
Self-publish your queer coming-of-age rage (15 years too late), then put it in a drawer
Call it All My Exes Were Geminis and I Forgive None of Them. It’s art. It’s healing. It’s not for the public.
15. Go Full Lesbrarian Mode
Get a Multnomah County Library card just for the hold shelf thrill.
Reserve 12 books. Pick them up wearing sunglasses and headphones. Leave a note in Tipping the Velvet for the next babe: “You’re doing great. Please don’t talk to me.”
In the end, your Pride will look less like an Instagram carousel and more like a slow, graceful exit from every group text you were added to in May. No parades. Zero glitter. Just a sequence of increasingly unhinged solo activities performed in full avoidance drag: sunglasses, headphones, and emotional detachment.
Sure, our Introverts Guide won't help you fall in lust with a Scorpio DJ named Blue. But you will absolutely fall in love with not having to make small talk while holding a warm canned cocktail. And honestly, that counts as queer progress too. Sometimes Pride's just about finding ways to show up for yourself, quietly, weirdly, and in the softest damn outfit you own.
And if that sounds lovely as hell, this list's for you. We’ll save you a seat in the shade...with plenty of personal space.
