Nobody warns you how hard this part is. School hands you a ready-made social world for close to two decades. Then it ends, and suddenly you're expected to just build one yourself, from nothing, as an adult with a job and a commute and not a lot of spare hours.
It's especially strange in a new city. You know how your old friend group formed, mostly by accident, through proximity and repetition. Nobody actually designed it. It just accumulated over years of being in the same rooms as the same people. Move somewhere new and that whole accidental machinery stops working, and you're left having to build it on purpose, which is a completely different and much harder skill.
Here's the part that actually helps: stop trying to make one big friend group appear all at once, and start saying yes to one specific thing at a time. A coffee. A tennis game. A walk on a Saturday. Not a plan to "get to know the city," just one concrete hour with one other person doing one specific thing.
Apps built for dating don't really fit this. Neither does joining a club you're not sure you'll like just to meet people. What actually works is lower stakes than either: someone to do the specific thing you already wanted to do anyway, so the activity carries the afternoon instead of the conversation having to carry it alone.
This is exactly the gap Kiindmate is built for. Post what you're into, coffee, a walk, whatever, and Mates nearby who are into the same thing can say yes. No pressure to turn it into anything more than what it is. Just an actual hour with an actual person in the city you just moved to.
It gets easier. Every city has people who are also new, also a little unmoored, also just looking for one good Tuesday plan. You're not as far behind as it feels like some days.
Post what you're looking for, or browse Mates near you.