What makes weeknights work better than weekends here is pacing — people are actually talking instead of shouting over a DJ. Tuesday and Wednesday thin out the bridge-and-tunnel crowd, which either helps or hurts depending on what you're after. Thursday is the consensus pick if you want numbers.

The community reactions to this question are instructive: the most-upvoted answers weren't bar recommendations at all — they pointed toward recreational sports leagues and mainline congregations, which suggests the people who've actually solved this problem in SF stopped waiting for the bar scene to do it. The SF Queer Recreational Sports League (sfqsf.org) runs leagues in multiple sports with explicit social infrastructure built in; sign-up windows open seasonally.

If you're committed to the bar route: Zeitgeist in the Mission has communal picnic tables that force conversation in a way a regular bar stool doesn't. Go before 8pm on a weekday when it's not packed. Cash only, food trucks outside vary by night.

With two hours on a Thursday, I'd start at Twin Peaks at 6pm — it's a fishbowl bar with big windows, easy to read the room — then walk down 18th Street and pick wherever has the right energy.