If you're feeling overwhelmed but lonely, and have a schedule that keeps you too busy, best things you can do are find one meetup or volunteer organization you might go to once a month at the most. Feel out people you can try to connect with and if one person reaches out to you and/or if you choose to reach out to that one person, ask if you can spend only 1-2 hours with them at most and just chat or do a board game or some casual activity at a cafe or such. Let that person know that you are looking to build a connection, but that your energy time is very limited.
If there is something small you can help them with such as if they need help having something painted and you're really good at that, and it will take "only" an hour or two at the most, you can help them out with that. Or if they are looking for something and you have a lot of knowledge on such and such a thing, you can share a bit of that knowledge. See if they reciprocate naturally. If they don't reciprocate enough, time to "run for the hills". If they reach out to you again and ask to hang out, ask for something that will benefit you and define those boundaries more since they didn't reciprocate properly the last time. Such as, if you made more effort to travel toward them the last time, invite them to do something more convenient for you. If you're planning on doing something but don't care if others show up or not, those kind of events make great things to invite people to.
For instance, I will be attending a vegan macaroni fest open to the public. I've invited other people I want to maintain or build contact with to the event. One acquaintance, after I invited him, he eventually had another event cancel on him and ends up being able to go. But then, he wants to meet me before the event but he offered nothing specific. I just declined and said I might be too tired to do stuff before the event- which is true- as it's actually a distance for both me and that other person.
There are certain people I would do that extra time for, but that person just isn't worth it (yet?)
Flakiness and last minute tend to take up too much energy and maybe even too much time and potentially affect funds as well. If you like to plan, I think that is a good way to try to build more stable friendships. If people don't like to plan, that is okay but you can't take doing things with them seriously. These kind of people, I will tend to ask last minute and/or tend to invite them to things where if they forget to sign up or don't show up, it won't negatively impact my own experience or being. And that's if I have the energy to think about them. . . .Those kind of people who can do things last minute, it's because it's n their nature because of personality and/or they have so many friends and aren't able to regulate that amount of social activity well. So, they just "commit" to everything or say I'm not sure or ask you to remind them. If someone has to ask you to remind them, it's not necessarily a flaky person but it could be. I tend to less frequently reach out to these people if I have to remind them more than once or twice as I only have so much energy even though I feel lonely sometimes too.
