Hi Max,
I also got your private im, and been meaning to email you back. There is a mailing list called "Bay Area Furs", which usually is pretty active, but is currently down as if it doesn't exist (been on the list for years, and never seen that happen). When it is back up, I will email you with the link to subscribe to that list.
For sure, the term furry is a loose word, that means different things to different people. There is a strong furry community in the bay area, mostly down in the south bay and in the suburbs. But as a wise man once told me, anyone who claims to have created a community, has really just started another clique.
This is just my observation and opinion, but I kinda notice two different things going on furry-wise in the bay area. First, you have people who often don't identify as furry's, but just love dressing up in costumes, wearing faux fur, doing animal themes, and you'll often find them at events like the bunny anon salon or running from animal control at burning man. They do it because they think it is fun and interesting, and a part of the bohemian counter-culture that is strong in the bay area.
Then you have the furry's who will only have friends who are furry's, who live to go to furry coffee's and furry munches, and go to furry conventions around the country. While some like to fursuit, most don't, and the same goes for the art. One could say they are furry's because they were often outcasts with few friends, until they found this little furry clique - i mean community - and suddenly they have friends, and a life. So for them, the furry lifestyle is strong. Although in my opinion, they are missing out alot in life, because there is a whole world out there to travel to (other than just cons), and by only having friends who are furry's, you are missing out on the other 99.9999% of the human race, many of whom are wonderful and exciting people.
To be a furry, you simply have to call yourself a furry. While some people may argue differently, you don't ever have to go to any furry convention, or furry coffee, or even have any furry friends to be a furry yourself. You just have to identify with the concept however it means to you.
But on the same token, I personally like to call people furry who would never identify as one themself. Mostly because of the negative perception that furry's often have. For example, I love to call some of my bunny friends furries, simply because they dress up in fursuits more often than any furry's i know, but simply have no interest in conventions, and think (often wrongly), that to a real furry, fursuiting is a fetish done for sexual pleasure, and not for fun and art as they enjoy doing it...
So to answer your question, how to meet furs, it really depends on what furry means to you and what direction you want to go. (myself, I have friends on both sides, I help throw an easter party that is fursuit/animal costume mandatory, where we get 500 people in fursuit, maybe 2 of which might call themselves furs, but I also am getting involved in helping out with the production of the second largest furry convention in the US, very few of which any of the furs that go to that con would ever go to a bunny party... Talk about a cultural - i mean clique - divide...)