You need some kind of social bond with the people you work with. What are you going to do instead? Treat the people you work with like robots where every interaction is a barter or request of some kind like "Hi, can you review this please. Thanks." every single day for the entirety of your employment at this company?
The colleagues are not much more than robots. Wait for another promotion or layoff round. Nice for you if you’re not competing with others for more money or job security.
Some of my old colleagues moved across the atlantic. We still keep in contact - one of whom I speak to daily. Have you tried contacting your friendly colleague or tried meeting up with them? 1.5h is not very far.
I didn't say they were and more importantly coworkers don't need to be your friends for you to have social interactions with them. I found those in person workplace interactions helpful for my overall mental health, because even a throwaway conversation at lunch time provides some contact with another person.
99% of the time these days the only person I talk to on a given day is the cashier at the store. I think you don't appreciate how bad some of us have it on this front, but for some of us work was a social outlet.
Why? I get the argument about not getting too close with coworkers (although I've never encountered those problems with mins, and I've made good friends everywhere I've worked), but why are people who are about to leave worse?
I didn't realize just how much of my social interaction came from work and it's something I've not been able to recreate outside of work in my free time. I am hopelessly lonely and the mental health affects have at least in my case been dire.
At the same time I'm afraid to RTO because if for some reason I need the flexibility of WFH again there's a good chance I won't easily find another job that allows it.
We talk about the loss of third places, but some of us have lost our second places too.