Edit Mode: disable closest selection Is it possible avoid Blender 2.79 from selecting the closest vertex/edge/face in Edit Mode?

I find that even when clicking well outside of my model, the closest possible target often seem to selected, I have no idea why Blender would behave this way.

Thx!

Update: the behavior I am seeing: https://streamable.com/y447y
Not really an answer as there is currently no solution to my specific problem in 2.79. But I did find some alternative to de-selection.

I have created a keymap based on the 2.80 "Industry Standard Keymap" proposal in case people ran into the same issue as me.

https://gist.github.com/bitinn/22f6fefe026d8d9e83468864edb8f835