Hmm I see. Well its hard to say. I can only say, that there was games in the past (single player Breath of the Wild and multiplayer Underlords) that wasn't fun to play at first. But I kept going for different reasons. Then it clicked with me and those became very beloved games by me. Maybe it is really just to play the games until they are fun.^^ If you really miss your friends and always have that in mind when playing without them, then I don't know what advice to give.

If you stop playing after a few minutes, maybe start playing games that are meant to play in short bursts of time... without friends. That would rule out story based AAA games, but you would play on your own and get used to it maybe. I'm thinking of games like Brotato in example.