[moron4hire]

Building a social network takes time, yes, but it's not actually a lot of time. Parallelize your networking strategy. Yes, you're dealing with random scenarios, but each has a non-zero probability of turning into work. The faster you can get through scenarios, the faster the aggregate probability of 1 of them converting out of all of them converges to 1.

It is also helpfully self-limiting in regards to going overboard in one particular group. You just won't have time to overstay your welcome at any one place.

You also get to test the waters on many places at once and whittle down the candidate set for ones that don't strike your fancy very quickly.

Also, stretch outside of your comfort zone. If you strictly go to meetups that you think you will like, then you are likely to meet people who think like you. Finding work as a consultant takes putting yourself into environments where you are the odd duck, where everyone has the same problem and nobody within the group knows how to solve the problem.

This could mean something as simple as taking ballroom dancing classes, or attending film enthusiast discussion groups. These sorts of places tend to be populated by people who know each other from other places, such as work. Jobs at which they might have problems you can solve.