> Situational socializing can still be fun and it doesn't have to be this thing where you are going to have these people be your best man at your wedding.
Absolutely agree. This is why I mean more specifically that this shouldn't be relied upon entirely. If you stop being in the office, and your social life goes away, then maybe too much is coming from your work social life, whereas my opinion is just that it should be an augment. You may not need your casual work buddies to come to your wedding, but you probably want someone to come to your wedding, and it probably needs to come from somewhere else.
It's just a common thing I've heard—from particularly 9 to 5, somewhat more socially anxious people—that they have no idea how to make friends now that they realize their work friends don't necessarily want to go have a picnic. Work tends to usurp their personal lives in this sense, though I don't necessarily mean it to be so dramatic.
> That's an interesting approach - how do you even do that though?
It takes time and breadth. It's probably a better idea in general to just meet people through other means, but the big thing is simply forming enough of a connection with a small subset of your colleagues that they'd invite you to a party or something, then you might get to meet some other people, of which a small subset of those will vibe well enough with you.
It's just like meeting the friends of your current friends in that if they move away, you have redundancy. You wouldn't want 10/11 of your social group dependent on that one person you met them through, but that one person might give you exposure to the other 10. Ideally you get to a point with the other 10 where you'd invite them regardless of your first friend's availability.