Introducing cats in the real world...

[Pashazade]

So the advice is take it over four weeks, etc etc. how am I supposed to keep two cats separate whilst allowing the current resident freedom and trying to prevent new resident from escaping and not have them interact!?
Current resident is 14 male and we're taking on a 2.5 yr old male. Will they just sort it out after the initial shut in a room bit?
When 14 yr old arrived some years ago he vaulted a 6ft barrier and refused to be kept in his room and mostly ignored then resident cat who just fizzed at him, so I'm not sure if I should worry about taking intros so slowly.

I had new cat shut in room, old cat roaming house. Lots of scent swapping between the two.

Then when old cat went outside, we let new cat have the run off the house.

Finally started letting old cat see new cat.

I think this took a lot of time but eventually we got bored and let them get on with it. The was helped enormously by the new cat being ultra laid back and not really caring what stressy old cat got up to.

As your old cat has form for not being bothered hopefully it will work out.

First time I introduced two, they got on straight away. So we're not separated at all. This time, new cat is much more timid. She met the other cat as she came to meet us when we got home. Kept her in the spare room for about 10 days ish. But other cat was more annoyed by not being allowed in. Almost 3 weeks in and both have run of the house. Some growling but no actual aggression. New car is still very nervous.

We had a horrid time of it and ended up having to shut the old cat in to force them to get used to each other. We tried everything before that to have them close but not interact but new cat escaped every single time!

I just placed new cat in the living room and acted like its the most normal thing ever. We did this introducing new dogs and cats several times and it always worked well. They didnt like it at first, but i just ignored it. I think if you are nervous, then the pets get nervous too.
I used a feliway plug to help, bit no separating, scent swapping circus.

Thanks, I think we're going to go with closed room for a few days just to acclimatise new cat to us and then let him have the run of the house!