Universities : Engage with professors and ask if they want any free coding done, you'll make friends

Python user groups: I've been to two of them and speak every few weeks (for free) and have made a group of friends there.

Shared interets: I am interested in computational chemistry, so I got on a bunch of science discord channels and started chatting and helping others (again for free), now I have friends in every country, I just got back from the US and I met several over there (they paid for my flights etc)

Find some shared interests and engage with people