Nothing prevents you from making plans to meet up with coworkers, once every few months. That is a very different thing, from a sense-of-belonging perspective,

Nothing prevents you from making plans to meet up with coworkers, once every few months. That is a very different thing, from a sense-of-belonging perspective, from having a group that you share meals with day after day. The only thing besides work that could be comparable is a family. That's it's own challenge, though: easy to get cabin fever locked in with the same small group of people all the time.