This election is going to be historic, there is no denying. Should Hillary Clinton win, she will be the first woman president and first former First Lady to serve in an executive capacity. Should Donald Trump win, not only will he be the oldest president ever elected but the first since Calvin Coolidge to not have had any military or elected experience prior to doing so. And goodness knows I don’t even need to mention what the political climate and precedent would be should someone outside the Democrat or Republican Parties win the presidency.

With all of this bandy about the importance of this election, it is no wonder that we hear the words more now than ever: make sure you get out and vote. Perhaps it’s merely just me being a newcomer to the college political environment, but never before have I seen such passion for the voting process. Inevitably there must be a desire to exercise such rights simply because most of my peers have never had that enfranchisement before now. I also can’t help but think that the polarization of this election has driven the demand to vote.

Donald Trump is an unsavory character; even his supporters don’t disagree with that sentiment. And that unsavoriness is driving demands to vote. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen a Facebook post or a tweet about how everyone must vote in order to prevent the New York businessman from taking the White House.

Yet for many millennials (myself included) Hillary Clinton is no better of an option than Trump is. She’s cold, calculating, and ethically deficient at best. Why would they want to vote for someone like that just to stop a loudmouthed New Yorker from sitting the Oval Office?

And still many voters don’t feel that the third-party options truly represent their best interests. Gary Johnson doesn’t have the corrupt or antagonistic qualities of either of the major party candidates, but he’s also fallen short on a few issues, namely in regards to foreign policy. I don’t know if the so-called Aleppo moment really derailed the Libertarian’s chances of shaving off enough electoral votes to force the election to the House of Representatives (his polling has actually stayed remarkably consistent) but there is no denying that the move was embarrassing and indicative of a major problem with Libertarian isolationism.

Jill Stein, also devoid of much of the muck that has clouded the Trump and Clinton campaigns, has likewise has had some missteps, including claiming that wi-fi causes cancer in children and that nuclear power plants are equivalent to weapons of mass destruction. As poor as Johnson’s Aleppo gaffe was, it pales in comparison to either of those claims, potentially why Stein has struggled to gain any sort of traction in any polls.

So what am I getting at here? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the public at large is being inundated with call after call to vote, vote, vote, the sentiment being amplified by the vitriol of this election.

I’m here to tell you that it’s perfectly all right not to vote.

Be forewarned. Doing so will gain you scorn from all angles. Choosing to adventure down this path means the Trump people will say you’re only helping Hillary to the White House and vice versa. The Gary Johnson and Jill Stein supporters probably won’t be too happy either, despite their candidates’ narrow chances of winning.

The fact of the matter is that abstaining is just as much of a choice as voting for a candidate.

To explain it in contemporary terms, you’re a stereotypical college kid going to a stereotypical college party where there’s drinking going on. You can choose to drink and make merry with your friends or take it easy and be the sober one in the group.

Both options have pros and cons. Drinking might be fun, but overdo it and it can put you in some dangerous and unsavory positions (or at a minimum make you feel like terrible later on). Likewise, if you choose not to drink your liver will thank you for it later, but you might not be able to fully appreciate the night’s hijinks like your inebriated friends do, not to mention the social ramifications, real or imagined, of eschewing booze.

While it’s not a perfect analogy, I think it does capture the spirit of this election fairly well. Trump’s the angry, conspiracy-laced version of you that you get after hitting the bottle too hard and Hillary’s the awkward social robot you get when you put the glass down. And if you wanted to play the full gamut, Johnson and Stein might as well be other, non-mainstream party drugs that pop up from time to time and that you might be brave enough to try.

In all, no scenario looks totally perfect, and you’ll probably be encouraged to choose the lesser of two evils.

However, there is another option altogether: don’t go to the party.

While it might seem a radical notion, why should you choose the lesser of two evils when you don’t have to choose at all? Why be responsible for putting either evil in office?

Granted, if you don’t vote, the assertion will be made that you can’t complain about the results. That’s fair. By not voting, you’re actively removing yourself from the process and acknowledging that you don’t want to influence the outcome. That you’ll be content (or if not content at least accepting) with the result.

Normally I wouldn’t be advocating for such a position. Normally I would recommend that you make your voice heard, regardless of what your opinion is. But these are radical times, there’s no denying, and often in such times, radical solutions are needed. If Trump starts a war somewhere or Hillary’s found selling American assets to better the Clinton Foundation, do you really want to bear a hand in that responsibility? Do you really want to invest in the policies of either of these candidates? Elections have consequences, and just as those who do not vote must be willing to defend their complacency, so too must those who vote for a candidate be willing to defend his or her policies.

So while you’re being badgered by either side to vote for one candidate to stop the other, realize that there is another option. You can leave the party. You can have a quiet night to yourself or find a whole other group of friends who don’t want to pick any evils either. And while opting out might have a negative stigma, let me assure you: your vote is your own, and who you decide to cast it for, or if you decide to cast it at all, is entirely up to you.