I am 43 and hubby is 45 and you have made me feel very fortunate to have the camping buddies that we have. Most of our camping is with my high school girlfriends and their spouses. We also camp with family.
If you have friends who don't camp, try camping close to home and inviting them to come spend the day with you and BBQ for dinner. We keep our 5th wheel on a lot in a campground year round and when our friends can't camp a whole weekend, they will come spend an afternoon and evening hanging out with us while we are camping.
We have never made friends with stangers while camping but our boys always did. They are adults now but still camp with us when they can and still make friends out of strangers. My boys could always draw people in with a game of baseball (plastic bat and wiffle ball). Use your 8 year old to help you meet people. ;)