Hard to make friends, bipolar, 50s, help?

It's always been hard for me to make and keep friends. But since the loss of my husband a few years ago, and moving cross country, it's become harder. Any tips or reading suggestions you might have would be appreciated.
Thanks for your time,
azureyes13

Hey there, have you tried meetup.com? Depending on where you live, there may be an abundance of different groups you could try out. For instance, a few years ago before I met my wife, I joined an outdoors group that I went hiking with, and a vegetarian group that had bi-weekly vegetarian pot lucks and met at various vegetarian restaurants. I am not good at maintaining friendships, but I did meet quite a few nice people in those groups.

EDIT: Also, welcome to the forums, hope you find some support and comfort here.

I highly recommend taking a class -- a class that meets regularly for an extended period of time and which would have some sort of interaction with other people. I made a few friends in my gardening class this spring and still hang out with friends I made in a local history course a few years ago.

Both of my classes were connected to volunteer programs -- so you spend 20-40 hours in class in exchange for volunteering later.

Check out my blog...I did an entry on making friends there a while back.

I am not real good at warming up to strangers due to some inadequacies in my communication techniques so I would recommend that you google: relationship tips or communication skills or something like that which might help you acquire good communication skills for when you meet someone for the first time and can say interesting and caring things or look good, etc.
IMO, my main weakness is having nothing interesting to say or SAYING IT WRONG. My ex wife was a good communicator and I learned a few "cool" techniques from her but the thing that helped me the most was Self Esteem work which gave me the confidence to speak up and establish a good connection with others AFTER I felt good and important enough to open my mouth and contribute to a conversation, offer compliments and show some interest in others and get them talking ABOUT THEM SELF.
I find it hard to "stay with" a group conversation and often "drift off" when others are conversing but, then I've always been a loner, so maybe I will never truly develop great communication skills.
This is all pretty funny coming from a public performer/musician who is quite comfortable talking on a mike! It's those one-on-one, close up encounters that are hard for me but I just fall back on the communication skills I've learned over the years.
good luck honing your communication skills,
jim

azureyes13, I sent you a friend request!