"The Naked Roommate" writer offers Capstone freshmen dating advice
Best selling author and syndicated advice columnist Harlan Cohen doled out insightful advice and hilarious anecdotes to a crowd of predominantly Capstone freshmen Monday night in the Russell House Ballroom.
Capstone President Dr. Patrick Hickey gave a colorful introduction for the college life expert, adding that Cohen had agreed to come to USC for half the price this year. Although Carolina Productions paid for Cohen’s advertising and production fees, the Capstone program paid the author’s performance cost.
In his presentation, Cohen tackled difficult topics college students often deal with — dating, relationships, sex and drugs — and made them accessible and relatable. By engaging the audience in interactive dialogue, Cohen helped students get comfortable with the uncomfortable.
To begin, Cohen sang his self-proclaimed theme song entitled “My Roommate Stu,” a track from his album “Fortunate Acts” about coming to college and having a nudist as a roommate. He then segued into helpful suggestions and hints about dealing with difficult roommates. The key, said Cohen, is not expecting too much from your roommate because, “they don’t owe you anything more than coexisting.”
Cohen also advised roommates who are having issues to agree to talk about problems within 24 hours.
“Don’t hide the uncomfortable things,” Cohen said. “If you let things fester, all hell will break loose.”
Relationship issues were also on the table, with in-house opportunities to find that special someone. Repeatedly throughout the lecture, Cohen had audience members who were single stand up and market themselves to the rest of the crowd. “What do you have to offer?” and “What qualities are you looking for in a significant other?” were questions Cohen asked to familiarize audience members with each other.
“I want you to meet people tonight or tomorrow or next year,” Cohen said, later saying that the trick is to embrace the universal rejection truth — thousands will want you, millions will not.
“Once you give people permission not to want you, then you can decide ‘Who do I want?’ and ‘What do I want to do?’” Cohen said.
This freedom and sense of self was something Cohen learned the hard way in his own college experience, which included everything from difficulty making friends, to dealing with the breakup of his long-distance girlfriend, to transferring schools.
From all those hardships, however, Cohen is now able to unabashedly address these issues and help students who are new to college avoid them.
One appreciative student was first-year media arts student Joanne Stoner.
“The presentation was really good. I thought he made it really easy to understand college issues. He was using real examples of stuff that could happen, and his advice about having a life in a long-distance relationship was really helpful,” Stoner said.
Alexis Nugent-Iacona, an undeclared first-year student, agreed.
“I thought it was hilarious and helpful. The fact that [they were] real situations made it relatable,” Nugent-Iacona said.