You know that guy that you're friends with that is always trying to get you to do something with him? The one that doesn't have very many friends, and is somehow always in the wrong place at the wrong time to do anything with? Maybe he doesn't get along with your friends or maybe he just always suggests something that you're not in the mood to do, or maybe you don't like one of the people going, or maybe you always make plans but something always comes up that has to be attended to. After a while, you realize that, quite unintentionally, you're brushing them off every single time you talk to them. A little while after that, it becomes intentional because you feel bad when you talk to them, and no one likes feeling guilty so you deliberately try to avoid them. This in turn makes you feel more guilty, so eventually you end up hoping they just go away. Eventually, they either write you off as flaky and go away, or get the hint and go away. I used to do this in high school a lot, it was always awful. There was a Bruno strip about this very thing, way back when. I usually did it to people that I thought were kind of losers, which made me quite the hypocrite of course, because they attracted attention I didn't want. "I was just unknown, you were hated," was the Bruno line. People who were boring often got the same inadverdent treatement. I knew it hurt, I was powerless to stop it - the universe and one's own subconscious sometimes conspire to quell some connections before they begin, maybe. I missed some chances at good friends, I think, and I've had it happen to me before as well, so I know others have missed out. After a while, you just give up, you stop trying. Whether it's the person or life, you realize that something is giving you a not-so-subtle hint, and it's time to pick it up.