&gt; First they&#x27;ll always have to be your colleagues<p>Not after you or they left the job.<p>&gt; second they&#x27;re probably the same kind of people as you<p>The diversity is huge already within departments and limitless across.<p>&gt; Completely agree with that. And as I said in another comment, looking for friends is kind of looking for a girlfriend.<p>Actually ... it&#x27;s not <i>at all</i> like that. At least my dating behaviour is for good reasons very different from dealing with guys.<p>&gt;&gt; Couchsurfing &gt; That&#x27;s actually a good idea, they regularly meet up.<p>I have plenty of CS experience and from what I can say - you meet plenty of awesome people through CS - but the relationship-dynamics are exceptionally casual and noncommittal.<p>&gt;&gt; There&#x27;s a much higher chance of liking a friend-of-a-friend rather than a random stranger. &gt; Same for dating<p>Actually - even though this statement seems plausible - I highly doubt it is correct in practice and it isn&#x27;t as far as I am concerned. It seems rather that people tend to trust more easily and deal more openly with friends of friends.<p>&gt;  If you meet a person and she&#x27;s not the right one, don&#x27;t discard her,<p>To think of &quot;discarding&quot; in that context is stupid in the first place. You can and should discard a<i></i>holes - anybody else it&#x27;s just a very dynamic process of distance and closeness which comes to a natural halt at some point.<p>&gt; The idea can be generalized as: people are not always the perfect fit, but you can still hang out with them and meet some cool people in the process.<p>Fairly egocentric way of dealing with people - I suppose it&#x27;s possible to enjoy time with people for what they are without aiming at capitalizing on their relations.