You’re being dogmatic. Assuming that something works for everyone because it works for you, and if they say it doesn’t, it’s because they “don’t understand,” is wholly closed-minded.

I have to ask...what is your expectation of working on a development team? How do you feel team members should learn from each other? What process would you use to help get junior developers up to speed faster?

These are the questions that periodic pairing answers with the lowest possible negative impact to members time.

Now, if you get into an environment that is 100% pairing all the time, or two people at the keyboard taking turns with an egg timer, etc...that can be a huge pain and I'd totally understand not wanting any part of it.

Watching somebody code while you drink a cup of coffee at your desk and offering the occasional "you know, if you do such-n-such it will be a little cleaner" or "I think there's a function that already does what you're writing"...is pretty low-impact.

EDIT: I read through your comment history and see that you were with Pivotal. IIRC they are a pairing all the time shop (I seem to remember seeing a presentation at some point). I can completely understand how that would suck.