ASUC Elections are one of the most definitive parts of the Berkeley experience, and once again they have come and gone.
You have to walk to class alone
There's no longer someone there to walk you to class when you need it. While this is something that people tend to complain about, it really is one of the most advantageous things about ASUC elections. If you forgot your headphones and get bored, you can just listen to someone as you walk to class. If you're avoiding having to talk to your Tinder matches in public, having someone on your side talking to you about politics is a great way to prevent someone from trying to actually get to know you. Maybe you just want to spice things up as you make the same walk that you've made every single week of the year so far. No matter what the reason is, they're gone now and its a rough world out there.
You have to talk to your friends
You run into your acquaintance that you sit next to in Econ lecture every week because you both don't know everyone else. Unfortunately, that is the extent of your friendship and when you're actually forced to talk to each other as you walk to class together you panic. If only ASUC elections were still running, you could listen to someone ramble about policies instead of desperately trying to fill an awkward conversation. Then you would also have the acceptable amount of small talk in the 2 minutes you have before lecture starts: "OMG aren't elections just so annoying".
Less animals to pet on Sproul
Yes, I know it is a tactic, but it's a good one. I am more than willing to vote for you if you let me carry and pet your dog all the way to my class. Now that elections are over, there's still the occasional dog that walks by, and maybe the owner lets you pet it, but its not the same. ASUC people are so willing to exploit their animals for votes and I can no longer find anyone that will let me roll around on the ground with their dog for 5 minutes.
Severe bitch face isn't as acceptable
The constant severe bitch face that you have is justified by others during election season because people assume you're just avoiding the campaigners. However, now that they're over, the only people to avoid are business frats, and the level of bitch face you have seems a little harsh when you could just say you're not interested in business.
You can now differentiate between your facebook friends
You don't have as much of an excuse to ignore posts now that you can tell who is actually posting on facebook. Also, with everyone changing their profile pictures back to actual pictures of themselves on facebook, it's really hard to come up with enough clever comments for all of them and now your friends are salty when the only thing you can think of to comment on their perfectly candid picture of them standing in front of a sunset with naturally windblown hair is "cool."
You get less facebook messages
Now that elections are over, no one is messaging you anymore. How are you supposed to prove how cool and popular you are to your new friends when the only text you get when you're hanging out with them is from your mom? It was so much easier to prove how cool and popular are when you always had 5 unread messages about why (x) candidate was the best.
So really, there's just a whole slew of problems that we are able to avoid in election season. Good luck to everyone on finding new ways to avoid talking to your acquaintances! If all else fails, you can always talk about how much you like reading my articles.
