Select messages without setting them as being read?

Silly but for clarity, I'm using "red" as the past tense of "read" (reed).

I wonder if I'm missing a preference. Say you have your email in three columns: Mailboxes on the left, names and subjects in the middle, and a view of the email on the right. If I click an unred email in the middle column, it shows immediately as being red. In most cases that is okay, but if I delete it, Mail selects either the email that was above it or below it, and changes it to red as well.

I don't want it so show as red.

Some email clients set it to red if you stay on it for, say, 5 seconds, or make you open it. The reason why is because I want to go though that middle column and delete stuff without the next or previous email showing as red. Sure, I can right-click and set it to unred, but I'd rather not have to.

Thanks.