Where to find friends in real life?

Your point being what, that people only want friendship/meaningful connection if they’ve got nothing to do with their lives? Seems a bit of an extreme take.

I would say I've grown more and more introverted since high school. I felt my issue back then was I opened myself up to too many people. As a result, some of them were fake friends who I was stuck with them for a while. I often got the sense they didn't think much of me and viewed me as a laughingstock behind my back. And while I initially dismissed some of this as anxiety at the time, the more time I spent around them kept confirming my initial suspicions time and time again. As is the case with everyone who finishes high school though, I've lost sight of almost all those people. Since then, I've decided to express more caution with my friend group.

The older I get (and especially in the past year), I've frequently felt like Minio in the sense movies are increasingly becoming everything for me and are all I want to do. Not sure if I should embrace this though as I don't know if I'll have enough films to watch/rewatch to get me through my life.

I think where I'm at now is I just want to get a chance to experience certain things in my life at least once which I haven't gotten a chance to experience yet just to find out if they're worth investing my life on. To help with this, I've been attending numerous meetings at an organization around my city and it's been going...fine, I guess? Like, I'm still getting the sense it's too cliquey for me to stick around long-term. Also, the main people I vibe with there don't show up that often nowadays. I'm still sticking around for the time being though, either until I warm up to it some more or if something better comes along.

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I remember an article that advised us not to feel bad or guilty about ending or ended friendships.

It said that having many different friendships and many ended friendships is perfectly normal - it's a mostly unavoidable process of growing up and growing old.

There seems to be this societal myth that we're all supposed to have a best friend forever, but most people don't and that's a natural occurrence as life progresses. We move, they move, careers change, people get married, people make new friends, people get busy, people have kids, and on and on. Growing apart from friends is nothing to feel guilty about because we, our friends, and everyone go through this natural social progression.

Just cherish the times you had together and don't blame yourself or your friends for growing apart (unless there was something specific behind it).

That was the basic message, and a helpful one, I believe.

Applebee's
Or any cheap restaurant that has a bar...