I hate to break the news to you Sean, but you've just grown up. Grown ups (age depends on genetic make-up and life experience) don't like going to loud sweaty clubs to drink, gyrate and hopefully connect up with total strangers for absolutely forgettable and soon-to-be forgotten sex. Grown-ups like to sit down in a quiet place and, if they have a drink it is because they actually enjoy imbibing in that drink or coffee, tea, water, even, and want to have a conversation with one or a very few people. They want to exchange ideas, passions, interests, information, whatever, and they actually are interested in the people they are talking to. This isn't what youngsters do. They are still caught in the tribal mating dance (there is that damn dance music again) where the less you know about your potential partner, the better off you are.
Sounds like you need more friends who are grown-ups. The trick is finding places where grown-ups congregate and where you can meet some new ones to add to your circle of friends and acquaintances. If I had the answer to the question of exactly where that is (a question which plagues all lonely grown-ups), then I'd write a self-help book and be the next big thing on Oprah (got to hurry while I can still be on Oprah). When I visit HK in March, I promise you we can go out and have a conversation as grown-ups, hopefully you can invite some of your other grown-up friends along and we can have a rollicking time laughing ourselves silly, only sans the grape, sans the dance music and sans the infuriating roar.