Imogen Clarke: Vote For Personal Space

Imogen looks back on election week.

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I thought I was prepared for everything uni could throw at me. I’ve survived freshers and refreshers flu, multiple deadlines, raisin, and hockey initiation, with only a few scrapes on my dignity (just a few, honestly). Then elections week arrived.

I’m incredibly British with my approach to things. I apologise when other people walk into me – I have even apologised to someone on the hockey pitch for tackling them – and find strangers approaching me on the street both inconvenient and incredibly flustering. No, I don’t know where you’re trying to get to, but take that street, then turn left and then second right and you might find someone else who knows better than me…

So far even when I see people handing out copies of The Saint I stare at the floor as if my life depended on it and use my headphones as an excuse to pretend I can’t hear and have no idea what’s going on. I even turned down free, delicious looking cookies because someone was trying to hand them out on the street. I instantly regretted this decision, but turning around in the middle of a crowd and walking back was never going to happen. So instead, I tortured myself for the duration of my lecture about the cookie that could’ve been but never was.

In elections week this passive aggressive ‘fuck off’ is useless. My fuse has been growing shorter. The ‘thank you’ as I’m handed another flyer has regressed to merely a nod. The ‘I’ll see what I’m doing’ as I’m told about another event has become a ‘maybe’. And I don’t think I’ve accepted a single one of the page invites Facebook keeps bombarding me with, yet neither have I rejected them…feigned ignorance = diplomacy.

I know the elections are important. I know that without voting and making an informed decision about who’s running our union etc I do sort of lose my right to complain when things don’t happen the way I’d like. But I do not need you to pin so many stickers on me that I look like a ten year old’s school lunchbox. Campaigners, please be tactful. My advice if you want to get people’s attention? Free food. And maybe a legitimate plan or solution for accommodation.