...aww how old are you Headless Rat...?... I live in a fairly small town and at the beginning of the year a new trainee assistant manager started at work, he is miles away from friends and family, we don't go out very often, about once a month on payday,be it for a meal, bowling, or clubbing, and we always ask him along, he also comes to the pub quiz with us, he is quite young and painfully shy , it doesn't help that there are only 3 men working here among all these mad women, but we try to include him, he is religeous so he has joined the local young Christians Group , I'm not suggesting you start going to church or anything!!...but think about what you enjoy doing and pop into the library for info on any clubs etc....
I know small town life is hard as there isn't much to do in the evenings, have you thought about evening classes, it's the right time of year for that...