The test is not whether it sounds fun. It is whether the same people are there again next week.
Most lists of things to do in Toronto are lists of attractions. Attractions are where you go once with people you already know. What actually builds a social life is repeated contact with the same faces, so this list is sorted by that single property.
The rule. If it does not happen again next week with roughly the same people, it is an outing rather than a route to friendship. Both are fine. Only one of them fixes the problem.
This is where most people's social life quietly stops. Plan for it deliberately.
One off ticketed events, big conferences, most bars, and anything where you will never see the same person twice. They are enjoyable and they do not compound. The whole game is compounding.
All of the above solves the first half of the problem: being in a room with people. The second half is turning a familiar face into an actual plan, which is where most of it stalls. Kindred matches you on what you already like doing, and on day 7 it asks both of you for a plan with a date, a place and a time.
More on the city on the Toronto page, and a first year plan on the new to Toronto guide.
Recreational leagues, run clubs, climbing gyms, choirs, classes with a fixed term, library programming, community centres and volunteering shifts. The common feature is that the same people come back next week, which matters far more than how appealing any single event sounds.
Indoor and recurring: leagues in volleyball, basketball or badminton, pottery and cooking classes, climbing, swimming, skating at the free city rinks, and weekly trivia or board game nights. Roughly half the year is cold here, so treating winter as the main season rather than a pause is what separates people who build a circle from people who restart every spring.
Toronto Public Library programmes, city community centres, run clubs, outdoor bootcamps, park runs, free skating rinks and volunteering. Cost is one of the quiet reasons social plans stop happening, so free and repeating beats expensive and occasional.
Kindred is opening here before anywhere else. Join the launch list and you get Kindred free for good, plus three months of Kindred+.
Kindred does not run background checks and does not verify that anyone is who they say they are. No app does, whatever it implies. Meet somewhere public the first few times, tell someone where you are going, sort out your own way home, and never send anyone money. The safety section is honest about exactly what we do and what we cannot do.