Peter. Michael. What do you know about a book called Men Are From Mars? Women Are From Venus.

Let me guess. Women Be Shopping. The Book.

You know, as as famous as this book is and as much as the title sort of makes it clear what it's about, I don't really know anything about it.

This is according to some sources the best selling nonfiction book of all time. Other than the Bible but then you get into home saying about Bible fiction.

This book was published in 1992. It basically came out without any splash nobody noticed it. The author John Gray had published two self-help books before to know a claim or notice whatsoever.

And then a year went by and then he was featured on Donahue and then the book ended up on the New York Times bestseller list for 200 weeks.

There's also a bunch of like as a book this has more just weird spin-offs. So there was a syndicated TV talk show co-hosted by John Gray and Cibbl Shepard.

Okay. There was a Las Vegas show. There was a board game. There was a CD-ROM with quote role-playing and punchy graphics according to USA Today that cost $49.95 in like $19.90.

And then according to John Gray this book was such a big deal that judges used to require couples to read it before allowing them to divorce.

Oh my god. So who knows if that's true. I mean we'll get into John Gray's relationship with the truth. But like this was something that was really popular and the context of this book is also like a weird wave of gender essentialist books that came out in the early 1990s.

So there was a really famous one that used a lot of scientific research called you just don't understand. There's a book called Brain Sex. There's one called Sex on the Brain. There's one written by Sasha Baron Cohen's cousin called the essential difference.

There's one called Why Men Don't Iron. And then the best one that I found was one called If Men Could Talk.

Oh my god. Gender essentialist cinematic universe just as off putting to me as the Marvel one frankly. So okay you did something very smart and useful in our episode about the secret where you walk me through like the emotional experience of reading the book.

This is what we're going to do for the entire episode. I'm just going to walk you through like what I was thinking, what I was learning as I was going through this book roughly chronologically.

So the full title of the book is Menor from Mars, Womenor from Venus, a practical guide to improving your communication and getting what you want in your relationship.

Okay. Improving your communication and getting what you want seem like two different things, but okay. We're already finding some tensions.

So I read the, I think it's like the 20th anniversary edition of this book. So it starts with a preface by John Gray where he lays out like what he was trying to do and the purpose of the book.

He says the same issues that would frustrate me 23 years ago in my relationship with my wife, Bonnie are the same issues that occasionally come up today. The difference today is that I'm more tolerant accepting and understand.

I can more correctly interpret her words and reactions and no better how to respond. This book helps us to be more tolerant and forgiving when someone doesn't respond the way we think he or she should.

Fortunately, perfection is not a requirement for creating great relationships.

Bonnie, reach out if you need help. I think one of the challenges of covering these like self help books is oftentimes they start with like a nugget of truth and wisdom, right?

So the idea that like to be in a successful relationship, you have to understand where the other person is coming from seems totally fine to me.

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