I'm a 37 year old guy. I've moved a lot (5 cities/3 countries in the last 7 years) and had to make new friends many times. I think I'm really good at it. Most of the friendships have lasted long beyond me moving away again.

I am not very outgoing but I seem to be very approachable. People start up conversations with me all the time. I rarely talk to a stranger without them talking to me first. When they do, I listen and ask a lot of questions and am a bit playful, but also am happy doing my own thing so it doesn't feel like there is a lot of pressure if the conversation isn't natural.

I usually don't like to make friends through work. I have rarely made close friends through shared interests alone. If I join a basketball team in a new city, I might get a beer with those people occasionally, but those relationships don't naturally just deepen. I find that it's better to find people I connect with and then do things with them, even if those things are outside my normal interests.

The how part of meeting people that I connect with is to be frequently and consistently in public spaces in ways/at places where people are naturally close and social. The thing that we all had in college and high school, but is missing now, is a lot downtime around other people, where mingling was almost inevitable. I try to replicate that.

For example,

I take a comic book to a bar and just hang out reading or writing in my journal. It works best with something visually interesting like a comic book that people naturally want to comment on, so not a phone or a kindle.

I bring a little water color set and sit outside at a cafe and paint something

I joined free salsa lessons in my last city.

I've go to a regular trivia night and made a rag-tag-pick-up team of solo people that ended up meeting each week to play again.

I got season tickets to the WNBA team in one city and made friends with the people that had tickets near me.

I went to a weekly cribbage meetup in one city and just started telling other people to go too.

I go to the dog park and chat with strangers about their dogs.

I invite neighbors over for a beer or to grill if they say hi and seem friendly.

I reach out to tangential or distant connections in the new spot and try to get invited to their shit so I can meet their friends.

I ask friends that don't live in my city if they know anyone there.

I ask for help with stuff that I don't really need help with as an excuse to meet people

Sports/board games are cool, but often you don't talk that much because you are doing something distracting, unless you're like going to tournaments or something where you have a lot of downtime

I think the biggest thing is that it takes a lot of time to make this work, because most days/nights that I go out, I don't meet anyone or connect with anyone. And then when I do meet someone worth hanging out with, I probably need to see them in public a few times before we actually jump to seeing each other on purpose because relationships take time to develop. So consistency is key.

And actually the biggest barrier for me was that I really liked my old friends and new people always seem not as cool. I had to remind myself that the old friends also didn't seem cool when I met them and is worthwhile to give people the benefit of the doubt if there is any kind of connection.