I'm gonna guess that you're still in school. It gets really hard to make friends with complete strangers when you're not forced to spend a set amount of time with people in your age group like you do in courses. I was lucky that my company hired some people in my age group that I like and now I'm really good friends with some of them, but if you don't like your coworkers... You have to seek friends out elsewhere. if you just waltz up to people and introduce yourself, a lot of people assume you want something more/less from them than chill companionship (business connections, sex, etc). And then you have to work through that barrier to get to the understanding that "hey, I just actually want to make friends." Yea, there are more targeted things like board game nights at a bar or other hobby meet ups, but just cuz I like badminton, it doesn't mean I want only friends who also like badminton.

Maybe I'm just socially fatigued from being a female introvert in the financial district, but yea, skipping to the part where I and some random people have a mutual understanding that we're just hanging out and having fun in this city does indeed sound lovely to me.