I go to Meetups to make friends and influence people. It has basically become more and more of my social life as time goes on.
I don't go to software meetups, though. I get enough of that stuff from working/side projects/etc. Nothing against them, I just feel that filling my free/social time with more programming content might cause me to burn out even faster than I already am. My suggestion: find a meetup for something completely unrelated to your work, like bicycling, board/video games, camping.
Making friends in the industry means they know the stuff you are going through. The other thing is that if you dislike your job it’s a great way to get a new one.