Originally Posted by Norah

I just want to interject something here. I have moved ALOT, being a construction brat growing up, so I learned the trick of the trade when it comes to making new friends in a new place. We retired here 14 years ago, never lived anywhere more than 5 years before that.
Go do things. Go to church, quilt club, volunteer at school or the hospital, join a hobby club, go to community meetings, senior citizens, the gun shooting range, fishing, gold panning, whatever. Soon you meet people, then you start interacting with them and soon enough you have new good friends.
But, YOU have to make the effort to get out there. Not many will come to you. Most don't know you are there.
We have friends here now that are closer than family, and lots of them. We are in a small community, so it is harder to find people that we have something in common with, so we developed new interests as well as kept the old ones. I have a quilting afternoon where anyone who is interested comes every Friday, either at my house, or the senior center depending on the week. My husband is a fishing freak, and he met people at the lakes. We go to Bingo at the fire department, joined the volunteer fire department and the auxiliary, not our favorite things, but we met some good friends. Get the idea? Anyone can do it. Yes, even with kids. Volunteer at school, PTA, go to soccer and baseball games, church, have a play day on Saturday at the park, with hot dogs, or whatever... just do it. Soon, you know more people than you want to, and there has to be a friend or two in them.
Enough of the lecture, but if you don't have friends there, you need to do something about it.