The reality is outside of work you pick your friends. At work, you're placed on a team with other people and you have no choice but to work with them. Sometimes they're great, but sometimes they're people you want nothing to do with, but they're on your team so you suck it up and make it work to the extent required by the job.
Over my career I've both worked with people that I've voluntarily kept in touch with after our time together ended (we even occasionally float the idea of jumping ship and going into business together) and people that drove me up the wall who I couldn't wait to get out of my life (as people, not even necessarily that they were unproductive employees, although some of them were). If I could just have less of those forced interactions due to physical proximity, then I'd have more social energy to spend on people I actually want to spend it on.
Not really. you can't force anyone to be your friend, and if there is some supericial reason someone doesn't like you, you can't really change that (not without a big change I guess. I'm sure if you got ripped you'd suddenly have a lot more "friends). You're at the mercy of luck in where you meet and who clicks with you. And that gets harder as meetups and socialties become more based around how drunk you get or if you like sports. I like neither.
Over my career I've both worked with people that I've voluntarily kept in touch with after our time together ended (we even occasionally float the idea of jumping ship and going into business together) and people that drove me up the wall who I couldn't wait to get out of my life (as people, not even necessarily that they were unproductive employees, although some of them were). If I could just have less of those forced interactions due to physical proximity, then I'd have more social energy to spend on people I actually want to spend it on.