The kids tend to hang out with the kids of their parents' friends, with the neighbours' kids. A bit later in life, when in school, we find friends among the classmates, who too aren't usually all that similar to us.

Maybe when we switched to a fully online adult world with its hyper-optimization of everything, we've put our potential friends in the same bucket with recommendation system-driven content like music and tv-shows. Dating too.

There are certain benefits in getting by with limited choice, when we learn to communicate with people who are not a 100% match.

And as for having a drink or a coffee- we can always just invite the friends over. Hanging out in each others' apartments is fun and cheap