Dude was probably raised on stupid conservative shit and never did the work to find happiness in himself.
You don’t need connections to be happy and the connections people are drawn to tend to amplify what they’re putting into the relationship. If this dude is miserable and looking to others to fix it they’re just going to dig their hole deeper.
I’d clarify that this is different from leaning on friends when you’re going through a hard time, if you establish a positive relationship you can lean on it for stability when your life is rough… and some folks culture positive relationships during hard times by compartmentalizing them into a positive part of their lives (an example I’ve seen was a friend who joined our board game group during a rough time but didn’t reveal their troubles until later - when all that shit was going down our space was where she came to just have a good time and be positive).
Life’s hard. People raised on the ideology of bootstraps and “Having a family will fix it” are playing on extra hard mode.