Sorry about Florida, it really is gods forsaken waiting room. Hopefully you will be making good money that can compensate for living there.

When I was in that life stage I spent a good 10-15k a year going to bars and meeting people. I can’t say I really made a lot of friends but there were some girls and I got a wife out of the deal. During covid though it’s not a good option.

For friends, try to work with people you want to be friends with. I know it’s hard to pull off but work friends are essentially free. They are around all day they are convenient and you dont have to invest a lot of free time making them. While you have no kids you can make friends by going out and meeting new folks and doing activities you like. It’s hard and slow though like 1-2 years to get there. After that no new friends except parents of your kids friends.

I don’t know what you like to do for fun but what ever it is I’d try to get into that and leverage money to be able to make new contacts. For example I had an acquaintance that bought a boat, and went out fishing every weekend. He invited anyone that would come including random folks on forums. He met tons of cool folks, seems expensive but I spent way more on the bar than he did on the boat and I think he had more fun. You could probably do something similar by buying some expensive price of gear for whatever hobby you are into and invite folks to use it with you. Join clubs, take lessons for cooking and outdoors, basically use money to put yourself in situations where you meet folks open to meeting new folks. The openness is key, try to avoid events where clicks hang out.

Also I too have a bit of a headphone fettish I have like $1000 of various headphones and iems in my house