This article will cover two similar topics. They're close enough that I'll go over them together rather than split them up and write two overly short, overlapping pieces. A lot of people seem to want advice on how to make friends when they've moved to a new city and don't know anyone at all, or only a handful of contacts. I'm referring to situations where they're making the move aside from going somewhere to attend college, and so don't have all the advantages that come from that environment. A related question people want help with is about how to form a social life once they've graduated from college. Again, the main problem is that it seems harder to get things going once you're no longer surrounded by thousands of your peers.
Like with How To Make Friends In College or University, the ideas here aren't totally new. They're more of a little supplement to the more general principles in articles like How To Make Friends And Get A Social Life and How To Meet People. So this article will assume you know my basic thoughts on making friends; that it's about taking the initiative to put yourself in situations where you can meet new people, and then that you actively try to hang out with the ones you get along with so you can grow the relationship.
If you're also married, either literally or you're in a serious long-term relationship where you may as well be hitched, and you've just moved or finished up school, you may want to combine the advice in this piece with the info in the following article: