Personally, while I like doing solo technical projects at home in my free time, I really have little interest in spending my socializing time with more techies.

Personally, while I like doing solo technical projects at home in my free time, I really have little interest in spending my socializing time with more techies. I get enough of that at work. One thing I've been sick of for a long time was a lack of diversity in my social circle, which is a big problem in tech because there's almost no women there, it's a big sausagefest and in many workplaces has a frat-house feel to it. I really don't want more of that. So these days, I look for social opportunities with a lot more diversity. There's a lot of great groups on Meetup.com (outside the tech-focused ones) where the participants are far more diverse, and I mean that in every way: not only in gender, but also ethnically, age, career background, national origin, etc. Personally I like the outdoor activity groups. This also helps me be more physically active, something else that's wrong with this career field where we sit in a chair all day long in front of a monitor at arm's length.