Does enjoying life as an employee require friends and family?

There are certainly exceptions, but for the overwhelming majority of humans, friends and/or family are essential regardless of how you earn a living.

Why would you be happy without friends or family because you were self-employed? The two concepts seem completely unrelated.

Life without friends and family is something that can be tolerated if needs be, especially in this shitty social climate where it's harder to achieve both and even either. But hardly a goal, or something enjoyable in itself. It has it charms, but it's not a long term solution.

It's dangerous both for basic social and economic reasons (means no support group, and thus misfortune impacting the person even more), for mental wellbeing, and for overall health (the US Surgeon General just declared it "more dangerous than smoking and obesity" health outcomes wise).