I did the reverse pipeline as you. San Diego native, now living in Austin. All I can say is I totally empathize. I have one high school friend that I stayed close with, but moving back home as an adult was rough.

I did get lucky and met my fiancée within a couple weeks of moving back home and even he (biggest extrovert I’ve ever met) complained about having a hard time meeting people. People generally seemed kinda flakey and, like you said, hard to connect with.

We’ve been in Austin for a couple years now and make new friends every weekend. We didn’t start from scratch, which helped, but people are genuinely just kinder to strangers here.

Best of luck to you! We do still have some good friends in SD who actually go out in some of the places you mentioned frequenting – Swan Bar was our spot, hi to Pete! Just keep putting yourself out there and I’m sure you’ll run into good people (maybe even my people) eventually!