About meeting and finding friends. First thing that comes to mind is participating in some group activity: take Salsa classes (a good way of overcoming shyness, BTW). Buy a bicycle and get in touch with local biking community (via forum or app like www.meetup.com). If you prefer running do the same with running. Or horseback riding, or whatever. Or take cooking classes! Just remember that it must be group activity and your task is not to learn, for example, to cook but to participate in activity with a group of other people. So if you did not find friends in current group for, say, 3 months, move on to the next activity. Also, I would avoid IT-related activities as IT-people in general are "not very social", mildly speaking (I am programmer myself). Good luck!