I've been to two local reddit meetups. Here's a piece of advice for those: if you want to make friends at a meetup, be aggressive. The results of both of them were an hour or two of boring ass conversation over watered-down beer with no numbers being collected and no names remembered. If you want to continue meeting up with someone, don't be shy to be the first one to ask for numbers. Follow up when you feel the need to do so and make some friends.