Maybe you should choose meetups for those of your hobbies that are not directly related to your career.

I mean, it is likely that if you are a programmer you'll end up talking about work in a programming or startup meetup.

It will be much harder if it's about boardgames or ultimate frisbee.

Yes, I've met many people who "just want to network." Based on past evidence, less than five percent of the people I met from meetups became longer lasting friends. (Those are probably great odds when compared to my friendship rates in school and college).

I remember going home from some meetups feeling the night was a bust. In retrospect, I would have been less disappointed if I thought of it like dating or job hunting. My goal isn't a 100% match rate. My goal is to find matches that leave me happy.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong then. I'm not aiming for a 100% match rate—I'd be happy with a 1% match rate.

For an entire year, I probably went to a meetup every other week. In that whole time I didn't make a single new friend.

Maybe they just weren't the right ones for you. I also tried many different meet ups before finding the one that stuck with me for over years.

There's no shame in trying that meet up out for a year. I think that's the crux of "don't expect too much too soon." Sounds like it's time to try out another tech meet up, another hobby meet up, or anything else that has potential.