This resonates with me. I found a group of folks I loosely knew in my neighborhood, and started doing an informal "Tuesday Night Dinner". There's about a dozen of us, and on any given week about 6-7 will get together, usually at someone's house, and do a potluck-style dinner. If people are busy, we do a "no pressure" takeout night, but the point is we do _something_ every Tuesday night. We've missed maybe a half dozen weeks in the past 2 years, and lots of folks have become friends outside of the group as well. It's been probably the single most enjoyable thing about the last few years living in Seattle