Most people cower at anything healthy. They think love is an illness. You give them something good and they don't want to have it. So instead they recoil back to their world of abuse and perpetuate the problem. As a consequence, they think they are "stoic", "strong", "independent". But at the end of the day they are always one thing: Alone.

And if you beckon them back with flowers and kisses, they think YOU are sick.

Now that is an epidemic if I ever knew one.