I can’t seem to read this right now since I’m over my limit of free articles but I’ll say that Meetup.com has been really helpful to find interesting people in the same boat.

My recommendation to people is to find a meetup (doesn’t have to be from Meetup, could be a sports league, religious group, volunteering...) that meets frequently so that you have a chance to slowly get to know the same group of people over a course of time. I find meeting up once per month is a little too infrequent for growing bonds and prefer weekly/biweekly meetups but sometimes you end up meeting someone who you gel with and it’s easy to meetup many times over beyond the meetup interval.