This was excellent.

If I may toss out another recommendation: Volunteering is one of the best ways I have found to meet people.

A food pantry, house of worship, the library, a community theater, a political group, an environmental service group, local writers group, homeless shelter, women's center, whatever - there are so many things to choose from.

I found several advantages to making friends this way:

1. no/low stress because you are doing them a favor showing up. Any volunteer-based organization NEEDS people. YOU are people. They NEED you. Don't be stressed because you might not know what's going on. They will be GLAD to see you.

2. Volunteer onboarding processes force other humans to be nice to you and get to know you in order to place you in a service group or provide you an assignment. The people that most organizations have doing this are outgoing and friendly. I'm generalizing, but having served with a bunch of volunteer organizations, I have found this to be the rule. I was often one of them.

3. If you are volunteering for something that you care about / believe in / are passionate for, then you INSTANTLY know that you are meeting people with something in common. This gives you both something to talk about or bond over.

Source: I met my wife and many friends volunteering in different organizations.