If you go back into education that would be a pretty good place to start. Just start conversations with people and when you get familiar with them ask them if they want to go get some drinks or do something you have in common.
The reason meetup.com is so great is that the groups are all of people with a similar interest, and they’re all looking to make friends. If I were you, I’d try again. When you start going to the same group for a while, you start having conversations with people and you will start to see if you click or not. If you don’t click with anyone in the group, move on to a different group. As you get to know each other you can ask for a phone number and can start to hang out outside of the group
