Columnist says 'we are all rejects'

A famous army slogan was given a new spin Wednesday night. With his guitar by his side, syndicated advice columnist Harlan Cohen exclaimed, "Be the best reject you can be!"\nBest-known for his syndicated advice column "Help Me Harlan", Cohen presented different ideas about dating and rejection to IU students. The forum, "College in the Nude," took place in Willkie Auditorium and included many hilarious songs such as "Why Reject Me?" and "Girl Walks By."\nCohen, a Chicago native, began writing his column for the IDS in 1995 after interning at "The Tonight Show." One of the show's writers had an advice column, which sparked Cohen's interest. Since then, he has been giving relationship advice to people all around the country. His syndicated "Help Me Harlan" column is run in newspapers ranging from The Portland Oregonian to more than 70 college newspapers.\nWith more than one million weekly readers, Cohen said he receives many more letters than he can possibly respond to.\n"I try to pick something that has an unusual twist," he said. "There are certain ones that come up again and again … there's a snag, a little minutia that makes it interesting."\nTo best help his readers, Cohen said he uses a combination of sources in giving advice. \n"Originally, I used to consult experts all the time. But I've found in doing this day in and day out that you become an expert yourself," he said. "Now I'm able to use my personal experience combined with the experience of so many people who have written in."\nSpeaking candidly about his own relationship experiences, Cohen raised the topic of rejection and how it can affect relationships in both a positive and a negative way. \n"We are all rejects", he said. "The truth is that most people will not want to be intimate with you or me."\nThe trick, Cohen says, is to accept this idea and to realize that you are in no way defective simply because you may be rejected by someone.\n"Relationship rejection is about choice. It is a person choosing one thing over another," Cohen said. "Everybody likes different things in a mate, and we need to be comfortable with that."\nStudents, though drenched from the rain, were eager to hear the columnist's humorous yet helpful advice and were not disappointed.\nJunior Kristin Nesbitt read Cohen's book, "The Rejection Diary: A Celebration of Relationship Rejection," and said she was excited to hear the author speak. \n"I enjoyed his book, so I figured this presentation would be interesting," she said. "It was nice to see some of the stuff that he wrote about actually played out in a real life situation."\nJunior Erin Ransford, Residence Halls Association vice president of programming, was responsible for bringing Cohen's "College in the Nude" presentation to campus. Although she said she would have liked to have seen a larger turnout, she said many students who did attend "had a lot of fun." \nSophomore Kristy Brown attended, but said she didn't know what to expect.\n"I read his column a lot in the IDS, but I didn't know much else about him," she said. "I'm glad that I came, though, because I had a really fun time and learned a few things, too"