Moving to a city where you know nobody means every friendship after that is one you picked on purpose.

Inherited friendships come from proximity, and they are real, but they were not chosen. Starting somewhere with no history means every connection after that has to be built deliberately, which is lonely at first and produces a different kind of closeness. The cost is a hard few months and the return is a circle you actually picked.

If you are in that stretch now, treat meeting people as a task with hours attached rather than something that will happen naturally. Say yes to things that sound mediocre. Give it a year before you judge how it is going.