Moving out: Renting vs. buying, rent pricing

I live/work in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I have been fortunate enough to live at home with parents for the past 2 years. I live in the South Bay and I commute to and from work in San Francisco everyday. The commute is basically 2 hours each way. So I spend 4 hours everyday on commute but save up money from rent/dinner/utilities costs.

Over the past 2 years I have gotten different comments from coworkers about moving out or staying at home for as long as you can. I know it's not a great financial move, but I am wanting to move out now. I lost my 3.5 year relationship with girlfriend recently. I feel I have become more and more idle this past year. With her gone, I have maybe just 1 friend around here, but who is trying to move out of the country anyways. I feel like I need to move out to get out of this idleness, grow up, and spend less time commuting.

My parents have always advised saving up and buying a house around here instead of moving out and paying rent. Is it foolish/selfish of me to choose moving out now and start paying rent which is not saving up money at all?

I would also have to decide whether to move into the city or just somewhere closer to the city. Everywhere seems pretty expensive. And I am unsure of how much I should be paying for rent. If the current pay I get every 2 weeks is $2,072, what's the maximum I should be spending for rent?

Thanks for any of your feedback and comments, I really appreciate it.