This is true. I have been on both sides of the pairing equation. I am currently on a team that pairs too often and I am annoyed on a daily basis because I could have been utilizing that same time for actual work.
So yes, it's going to be difficult to convince me but feel free to take a stab.
1. You are in the middle of a death march and pairing with a team mate gives both of you the moral fortitude to keep going (and keep your programs relatively correct and relatively secure).
2. You are working on a tedious but difficult task and working with a team mate makes it so that you are less likely to make mistakes despite the tedium (as well as gives you the moral fortitude to continue with the task).
3. You are working on a difficult problem and you have a team mate that you can truly collaborate with to find solutions neither of you would have found on your own. (The Jeff Dean + Sanjay Ghemawat collaboration at Google is the most famous example of this.)
In any of these cases, it is important to pair with someone compatible with you. And you can build compatibility over time.
I specifically want to talk about - The Jeff Dean + Sanjay Ghemawat collaboration at Google is the most famous example of this.
Do you think they really produced all they did by pairing together? In my experience, the best things were produced by independent thinking, collaborating on experiments and trusting each others decisions. Not by actual pairing on the screen together.
For Dean-Ghemawat, I think they produced many great things by pairing on the same screen together. They also obviously did good work independently of each other.
But I also think it will be difficult to convince you otherwise if that's what you believe.