How to make friends while in a relationship in a new city?

Me(25m) and Gf(24fm) moved to a new city after graduating college, 1.5 years ago. To start I had a job that had odd hours so some days we wouldn’t see each other, worked weekends, ect. Now we both have stable full time jobs with weekends and holidays off. But, now the issue is, we are in a new city, no college friends, no family, not even high school friends. We have each other, but we miss that feeling of going and doing stuff with a group. Group trips to the lake, a bar,restaurant, pool, anything.

I’m someone that had a lot of friends in our original state. I thought naturally I’d make friends, but that never happened. Our goal when we first got here was career focused. We actually tried to refrain from going out too much. At first life was hard here because I had a good paying job just not a career. Finally got a job I didn’t think I could get, but life outside of work hasn’t changed since.

The community we live in has like retired people or small families and stuff like that.
Idk what I’m looking for, it’s not the “single-college-party life” but I did always imagine being in my mid 20s with my girlfriend hanging out with our friends and idk just living a bit differently. We are upping our budget and moving soon so that will get us into a more active area with young professionals, so hopefully that does something. I got the dream job. Now it’s the life outside of work we are getting bored of. We have to get out there more, but any time we have gone and done things, it doesn’t result in meeting people, just seeing other groups of people that, you know, aren’t there to make friends just hang out in their own group. It’s to a point where I’m question who I am. I can answer Why I haven’t made friends.. I legitimately haven’t had the opportunity. We have hung out with a few people, coworkers and their SOs and we had a great time. But I’m thinking of those friends that want to come over, and just hang out like real friends. DFW 📍