Less of us should be discounting the value of investing in new, long-term friendships, in the second or third place we live, and stop discounting the impact of arbitrarily moving away for cheaper or more isolated pastures just because we work remotely. There's a threshold past which it's worth considering how much is worth it to remain, but for many it seems like a no-brainer financial consideration, and they don't r…
Yes but investing in new, long-term friendships is a bit of an oxymoron. In order to do that, you have to pick one set of friends and then stick with them (cuz opportunity cost — the day is only so long). And once you've done so, you then have to stop investing in new friends and stick with those old ones. Cities aren't very conducive to this in part because... people in cities tend to be more transient and their rel…
I think this is a bit of a false dichotomy that assumes you get a static group of people dumped in your lap—in either case—that you get to choose or be alone because everyone else is guaranteed to choose not you for some reason, and also that long-term friends always require the same amount of investment. Likewise, you seem to be leaning heavily into not having to make a persuasive case for yourself, as if there's never a situation in which you'd be compelling.
Although scarcity might favor ease of intimacy, I think it's more true that luck, opportunity, and chemistry, give any pair of people something to work with regardless of shared interest. You can't assume every person you meet is friend material, but if you and them are open to it, you can both explore further. If 1/5 people seem fun to have coffee or go to the gym with, including in a rural area that may not even have a gym, it'll take a while to build that up, but you'll want a breadth of possible situations to meet people in. Hometowns don't necessitate that, you get it for free in school or church or wherever, but starting anew you gotta get out there.
You're not wrong though, I just think it takes longer. When I moved to where I did, a good half of the people I met were always looking for a plan B, flaking on trivial plans, not interested in one-on-one stuff without an activity going on. That was 8 years ago, and they're long gone. In their place are multiple groups of friends I've met in wildly different contexts, that don't flake enough for me to notice, and I consider pretty solid and close. I let the others go, and likewise with everyone in my hometown that I still talk to, I either can feel great about making a deliberate effort to spend unconstrained time with, or they're not in the picture, and maybe only 4 are left because everyone else is either a shallow acquaintance or were just there out of convenience in the first place.
As you grow older, there is certainly an economy of time you need to manage, but as you grow closer, you get grandfathered into not coming to that one thing or whatever every single time. My friend group consequently grows slower than ever, but is bigger than ever, and I make a point of being the friend I'd like to have—as cheesy as it is; I expect the same of them, and if they can do that then there's something to work with.