Individuals vary in their propensity to socialize. For some, contact with people is a painful necessity. At the other extreme, there are people who cannot live by themselves and are willing to spend time with people they don’t like rather than be alone.
Between the two extremes, there are many variations, but the greatest majority of people are closer to the type who cannot face loneliness. Aristotle understood this when he wrote that man is a social animal.
The fact is demonstrated by the fact that we move in social groups that there are more married people than bachelors and spinsters, that so much wealth and time is wasted in fatiguing and boring cocktail parties and that the word loneliness carries normally a negative connotation.
Carlo Cipolla, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity