I've never made any friends at a "gathering place". I think most people show up to bars, restaurants, or anything like that with people they already know.

Apart from meeting friends through existing friends (the "acquire your second million first" problem), by the far the best (if not only) way I've found to make friends is through shared-interest clubs.

If you show up frequently to events where you have shared interests, it becomes very likely that you'll make friends with some of the other regulars.

Bonus points if:

   - it's not too big a group (more chance of interaction)
   - shared exercise, like a sports group (endorphins help with bonding)
   - involves weekends or other trips away (living together briefly helps a lot)
   - niche interest (small network)
  - completing tasks together (work also counts here)

> I've never made any friends at a "gathering place". I think most people show up to bars, restaurants, or anything like that with people they already know.

It's probably my prior military force-learned charisma but I almost exclusively go to bars alone and almost always make a friend or two when I'm out. I don't like going to bars with other people often, they can meet me there but if I'm expected to only interact with one person I feel like I'm babysitting and have to keep them entertained whereas I'm a social butterfly and bounce around to a number of different people at bars alone.

But I will say I'm probably more uncommon than people who come in groups, especially in my new city that has less transplants- it's hard to break into friend groups when they've known one another for 5-10-20+ years.

Problem with bar friends is you might not have any shared interests aside from going out and drinking, movies, simple stuff vs your other options. And so you might not ever become closer friends than bar-buds.

Yeah, I've found it fairly easy to talk to people at bars and I'm not even a particularly social person. The type of bar matters a lot though. Some are too loud and crowded to meet people at. The friendship are superficial, at least for me, but you often hear some funny stories.

It’s hard if you do those things, too. I had my best luck with sports and volunteerism. Since I have kids, coaching youth sports has also been a great way to develop a group.

When I switched to another country where I didn't speak the same language I started attending language exchange meetups.

In fact that is where I met my current partner.

this really sounds like a fun and promising way to make friends. I've seen it happen at universities with "tandem" partners (italian comes to germany and wants to learn german, the german wants to learn italian), but they usually leave after the exchange.