You make music? Go to meetup.com or craigslist to find other musicians with similar skill levels and ambitions. I'm in my mid 50s and my kids are off at college and I finally have free time, and no friends.
A couple years ago I bought a used bass and amp (again, craigslist) for cheap, dusted off my old skills, then found some other people on meetup.com who want to play music socially for fun and improvement, but don't have the ambition to actually be in a performing group. It is nice to socialize for couple hours every couple of weeks with new people on a non-programming activity. One of the guys is especially compatible with me, and we've met up a couple of times outside of the band.
Anecdotal, of course, but I've found the meetup scene to be terrible in a some places. Most I've seen are inactive, aimed at a specific demographic, or are fronts for scams / MLM's.
A couple years ago I bought a used bass and amp (again, craigslist) for cheap, dusted off my old skills, then found some other people on meetup.com who want to play music socially for fun and improvement, but don't have the ambition to actually be in a performing group. It is nice to socialize for couple hours every couple of weeks with new people on a non-programming activity. One of the guys is especially compatible with me, and we've met up a couple of times outside of the band.