[pond_lilly]

It is not that simple. Many of domestic violence victims would have been alive today had they not chosen to stay with their abusers because of fear of loneliness. In a sense, the same mechanism that urges individuals to end loneliness might as well lead to their death, because in their desperation they associate with violent and dangerous people. It could be argued that in situations like that fear of loneliness is maladaptive.