Well Surhythms, I cannot comment whether you weird or not lol, having not met you yet! I am in a similar situation to you family wise as only got my youngest child a daughter aged 20 here with us, and I am the boss at work, so makes work friendships a work only event. Don't really have many suggestions as like you have tried several routes. The most successful one was I had to change my shift one day and went along to another thread meet up of walking at Mullaloo on a Thursday morning. I have found some lovely friends through that one meeting, albeit they are in different stages of their lives having younger children, the girls I met, and other people they knew that they introduced me to have been lovely. The hardest part is with working full time as most people have family events at weekends or chores, so that restricts options. I have not had chance to be on this site for a few months, but at home resting for 6 weeks following an op, and that's when the loneliness kicked back in.
Never really had a lot of support from family in uk, so did not expect to feel quite so lonely on occasions here. My OH and I looking to possibly go to the meet up on 28.2.16 in the city at Boheme, just because.... If anyone else is going let me know ( I will be on this site for the next few weeks whilst at home, so would be good opportunity to maybe say Hi?
Arwen, will pm you, we live in same suburb and sounds like family history similar. Seems a shame not to get together? x