My theory is that the degree of complication in one's life is directly proportional to the number of people that said person needs present in his or her life in order to be happy. So as the number of people increases, things get more and more complicated for the simple reason that a limited amount of resources (aka time) has to be divided by a bigger quantity and therefore leaving less and less available for each individual. Thus, those who can be happy by themselves reach a state of minimal complication (following the assumption that happiness is maximized when the individual is alone).
However, as life becomes more and more complicated, happiness has to start decreasing at one point, right? A bit like the concept of diminishing marginal returns, happiness will no longer be able to reach a potential maximum due to the increasing strain that complication puts on it. So for those who need many people in their life in order to be happy, well, they reach some sort of paradoxical state where they simply cannot be happy. In this case, a small number of people decreases their happiness, but an optimal number of people also decreases their happiness through the complication factor.
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