He refers to himself as the "Harlanimal." He wrote a song called "My Roommate, Stu." He is an advocate of creating "pap smear gift certificates" and "congratulations on your period" cards.Harlan Cohen, who grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, led an interactive presentation Sept. 23 in the Carl J. Shapiro Theater about dealing with the difficult aspects of college life.

Cohen has cultivated an eclectic résumé. He's a syndicated advice columnist ("He's like Dear Abby, only he's a lot younger, a lot hairier, and he's a man," his Web site boasts), bestselling author of The Naked Roommate, acclaimed speaker at high schools and universities across the nation and singer-songwriter (his tunes include the aforementioned "Stu," about-yep-a naked roommate).

During his talk, which he opened with his comical song "My Roommate, Stu," Cohen shared where he got his inspiration for writing about and helping college students: his own difficult experience at college. Cohen attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a school with a notoriously vibrant social life.

He told the audience that his first year there was nothing short of miserable when he experienced not only the end of his first romantic relationship but also when he was the only one out of all of his friends who wasn't offered a bid for a fraternity. It occurred to Cohen at the end of that year "that the only person who could be there for me was me."

Hoping for a fresh start, Cohen transferred to Indiana University at Bloomington. However, at Indiana, Cohen was faced with the inevitable truth that "90 percent of the bullshit I dealt with at Wisconsin was waiting for me [at Indiana]."

After sharing his personal college experience with the audience, Cohen offered several general insights such as: "Life is 90 percent amazing and 10 percent difficult." Often, he noted, we dwell on the difficult parts of life, which "take[s] up 100 percent of our time."

It is his mission as an author and a speaker to prevent people-especially young people-from letting negativity consume their lives. His goal is to spread his positive messages and to get young people to be their best selves.

Cohen's lighthearted but candid nature made his talk relatable and accessible for students.

Cohen made the presentation extremely audience-friendly, interviewing random audience members on topics ranging from roommate stories to dating life.

"I really enjoyed the speech. ... He had very inciting [sic] things to say about the dynamics of relationships, dealing with stress and getting the most out of the college experience," wrote Joe Correia '12 in an e-mail to the Justice.

Cohen emphasized his philosophy on life: "Get comfortable with the uncomfortable." Cohen adamantly believes that college is the time to confront all of the things that make you nervous or that fall outside of your comfort zone. He encourages people to "navigate through the uncomfortable," because "uncomfortable is part of the college experience."

The Harlanimal is relatively short, with brown hair and childlike eyes. He himself points out that his ears are disproportionally large for his head but that it works for him. A self-described "attractive man," Cohen said that his uncomfortably big ears were a characteristic of his that he had to get comfortable with.

As an example of an uncomfortable situation, Cohen told the story of a girl whose roommate started to have sex on the bunk on top of hers while she was in the room. The girl on the lower bunk called her mother in the middle of the sex. The mother complained about the roommate's sexual escapades to the residential advisor, and the girl got switched out of the room.

Cohen felt strongly that the situation could have been handled better. He suggested dealing with the uncomfortable situation up front instead of retreating into a comfort zone and transferring out of the room. In this case, the girl could have confronted her roommate about the behavior that made her feel awkward. Or, only half-jokingly, Cohen suggested that the girl watch the sexual activity.

Also in regards to roommates, Cohen asked audience members about their roommate situations and about any interesting experiences they had. One question in particular he posed was: "Is there anything about you that you wanted to keep secret from your roommates before you came to college, and how did you deal with it?" An audience member who prefers to remain anonymous for the article cited her affinity for nudity as her secret. She claimed that she and her roommates got comfortable enough with each other during the year to wear minimal clothing.

After addressing roommate issues, Cohen spoke about dating-specifically, "How to get a date sober."

Jumping down off the stage, he asked the audience who was in a relationship and who was single. He interviewed various students and asked about how they met their significant other (if they were in a relationship) or about their dating life and preferences (if they were single).

Cohen singled out certain audience members and asked them questions about their dating preferences. For instance, he asked one audience member how she met her boyfriend. The girl explained that her current boyfriend is her former science teachering assistant. Cohen made a joke about getting a "little extra help" and the audience laughed. Cohen also asked other audience members how they met their significant others.

In The Naked Roommate, Cohen writes in-depth about the infamous college ritual more common than the flu and more prevalent than all-nighters: the hookup. He dedicates an entire section of his guide book to dissecting the 16 different types of hookups that exist.

Some of these include the "Drunken Hookup" ("an alcohol-induced connection"), "Rebound Hookup" ("broken up and looking for some Band-Aid lovin'), "Convenience Hookup" ("the closest person with a pulse gets some") and the "Repeat Backup Hookup" ("a go-to guy or girl who is the backup love buddy" such as the 3 a.m. text message booty call).

Cohen placed a lot of emphasis on the hookup because he feels that "We depend on the hookup . and we forget that we have options." People often get consumed in a certain person's feelings for them when, Cohen emphasized repeatedly, there are always so many other people out there to choose from. So what if someone rejects you-you have other, probably better, options!

One of Cohen's central messages was what he refers to as "the holy grail of dating." The message is dubbed "the universal rejection truth of dating and relationships: Not everyone you want to be with will want to be with you."

According to Cohen, people are stuck in a state of rejection denial. He advocates "giving people permission to not want you." Essentially, he believes that we should not worry when people don't like us and not get bogged down by rejection. We need only to realize that there are so many other options out there. Once we give people this permission, we release ourselves from insecurity and we can turn the tables: instead of waiting to see "who wants us, we can ask, who do I want?"

"Harlan was able to use his unique comedic talent to portray his more serious underlying messages about dating and working through tough situations in college," said Nate Rosenblum '10, who attended the event.

Cohen concluded his talk with a question-and-answer session and a brief anecdote about how he met his wife in a UPS store. He explained to the audience that he saw her and instantly wanted to approach her. He went with the classic line, "Don't I know you?" to which she, of course, replied, "No, I don't think so."

But Cohen was persistent. He continued talking to her and after a few minutes admitted that he did not, in fact, know who she was. He wrapped up their talk by asking for her number. Cohen told the audience that they dated intensely for the following eight days and broke up on the ninth day. But they got back together shortly thereafter and have been together ever since. The couple has been married for six years and has two children, ages three years and 15 months.