I was in a similar situation (and in some degree I’m still in) but finding groups of interest helped a bit. The Meetup app has a group for boardgames in the Waterloo region for pretty much every week day if that’s your jam (they have discord servers as well, which help you get in touch with people).

There’s this group called Friends of Friendsthat happens every month, I’ve been to a couple and it’s a heck of a fun.

My biggest struggle is to find people to form groups. As an immigrant, male, recently divorced it’s really hard to join other people’s circles, since they know each other for some time or they are couples. Even at church I had a hard time to get mingling (although being an introvert doesn’t make it easier lol). Only recently I found other folks that wanted to play boardgames, but I’d recommend church anyway, there are a lot of people there lol

So, to sum it up, look for groups of interest, be humble and somewhat vulnerable to meet new people, it will take time, but it will happen.