DAE feel really isolated?

My wife and I moved to our town about 4.5 years ago. We have a 5 year old. He's in pre-K this year. We have made some friends and acquaintances, but we have no family nearby, and our neighborhood is friendly but not very social and there aren't that many kids around. We try to see people as often as possible, but there are days when I just feel so lonely and isolated. No one stops by randomly, we don't belong to a church or club of any kind, our son's pre-K class has kids from all over the city in it so we don't see them outside of school. It feels like there is nearly zero opportunity for casual socializing -- we either have to plan in advance to see people, or we hang out alone, or we shuttle around to events or places that are either only for kids or only for grownups. Some weekends my son and I just drive around to local playgrounds looking for someone for him to play with*, and it just feels terrible to me. Is this a common feeling? How do other people deal with it?*I don't frame it this way to him, but that's basically my motivation when we do it -- to him I just say something like "Let's go check out X Park next," or something like that. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2Fz6T7C