It came from outer space

John Gray PhD (via a correspondence course) is the author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships), which was first published in 1993 and has since sold 13 million copies in 40 languages - 13 million! 40 languages! - and is jam-packed with pithy little sayings which sound like wholly profound aphorisms until you realise that maybe they aren't:

"Generally speaking, when a woman offers a man unsolicited advice, she has no idea how unloving she sounds to him." (p 21)

Anyway, since then he's produced endless variations on the theme: Mars and Venus, 365 Ways to Keep Your Love Alive; Mars and Venus Forever Together; Mars and Venus in Love; Mars and Venus on a Date; Mars and Venus Starting Over; Mars and Venus in the Bedroom. Golly, where is it all going to end? Mars and Venus Test-Drive the Fiat Punto? Mars and Venus Wonder Why There Aren't Orange Ones in Bags of Revels Anymore? Mars and Venus: The Movie? "Actually," replies Mr Gray, "Meg Ryan is real interested in that."

"No!"

"Yup," he replies happily.

"Is she a typical Venusian, then?"

"She's a great Venusian," he whoops.

"But who would make a great Martian? George Clooney?"

"Sure. Or Tom Hanks."

"But not John Inman?"

"Gee, I love that show. We get it on PBS in the States. It's so funny."

"Generally speaking," I say, "the thing about Are You Being Served? is that all the staff take their tea breaks at the same time, thus making Grace Brothers a shoplifter's paradise during certain periods of the day."

"Hey, you're right!" John cries. "Gee, I never thought of that."

Sometimes, what I say can sound pretty stupid, until you realise it is actually wholly profound.

Anyway, I meet Mr Gray, a Texan who now lives in California in a big house with "seven gardens and a beyootiful swimming pool", at a London hotel. He is here to promote his latest book - How To Get What You Want and Want What You Have (Mars and Venus having yet to get back from test- driving the Fiat Punto, presumably). It's a lot of waffle about God and "love tanks" and fulfilling your higher potential; yet, such is John Gray's following, it is already number four in the bestseller lists here, behind the original Mars, Venus book, which still sits at number three. I say the latest book doesn't do a lot for me, frankly. He shrugs, as he can mightily afford to, and says: "All my books are not for everybody. I feel like I'm a big department store with lots of different outfits. If it fits you, great. If it doesn't, then it's not for you." Aside from pithy aphorisms he is, it would seem, a bit of a one for metaphors, too. John, can't some people's relationship problems go deeper than mere communication difficulties? "If you've trained to be a pilot, you can fly a jet," he says. "Same thing with relationships. You can be trained to have a successful one."

This guy is truly a phenomenon, although, physically, he doesn't especially strike you as one. He is actually quite small and round, and looks rather like a Babybel cheese with a wig on. Certainly, he is remarkably young- looking for 49. He says this is because he used to be a monk, still meditates a lot and once went without sex for nine years - "although I've made up for it since, ha! ha!" He is wearing a lovely, navy Italian suit. "A gift from my American publishers," he explains. His American publishers, HarperCollins, also annually send him and his family to Hawaii and once, on a book tour, "I forgot to bring my coat, so they met me at the hotel in New York with a beyootiful cashmere one I still wear". He adds: "When you're on The New York Times bestseller list for four years solid, you sure do get treated like a king." I nod knowingly.

Anyway, what is all the fuss about? Why is Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus now the biggest-selling self-help book ever? How come John Gray can sell out Carnegie Hall? How come, on top of all the books, there are also audio tapes and CD-roms and board games and T-shirts that say "My wife's from Venus" (or "My husband's from Mars")? Across America there are even licensed therapists who have received accreditation from one of Gray's training courses and can consequently advertise their services as "Mars-Venus friendly". How come friends of mine who I've previously thought of as sane have said things to me like "You haven't read the book? You must!" and "Whatever you do, don't bother a man when he's in his cave!" So I do go off and read it. And, yes, I am brilliantly impressed. It's a magnificent book. It's a total masterpiece of a book. The thesis? That men and women are fundamentally different creatures, and once this is appreciated and behaviour tailored accordingly, we are all destined to live happily ever after.

The differences? Men are goal-oriented. Men value "power, competency, efficiency and achievement". Men don't want to talk about problems. Men want to seek solutions. When men seek solutions, they need to go into their caves (ie, sit in front of the telly watching football). Never disturb a man in his cave. Never give a man unsolicited advice, because it undermines his feelings of competence and (heaven forfend) he might take it as a criticism. Never shout: "ALL I ASKED YOU TO DO WAS BRING A PINT OF MILK HOME, YOU FAT LAZY LUMMOX!" I imagine that, mostly, women buy this book. And I would imagine, too, that it does improve their relationships because, instead of allowing men to nettle them, they just allow them to get on with being stupid and idle and sulking a lot. This is why, possibly, it's all so brilliant, in its way.

And women? Women value "love, beauty, communication and relationships". Women often just want to talk about their problems, without necessarily seeking solutions. Men should listen more. Men should resist offering solutions. When a woman cries "I've no time for me!" he shouldn't say "Pack in the job". He should say: "Hm, sounds like you've had a hard day." And when he forgets the milk she, in turn, should say: "OK, honey. Maybe you could remember tomorrow?" And if he forgets tomorrow, she should say: "That's OK. Maybe you could remember tomorrow?" "And you just keep on at it like that until he eventually gets it," says John (Still, it might be wise never to ask a man to bring you back a kidney, should you ever be in need of an urgent transplant).

I don't doubt, actually, that men and women are different. But this is just rehashing ancient, sexist cliches, isn't it? Although, that said, John's superbly Stepfordy-sounding wife seems to fit the stereotype rather well. "When Bonnie sees I'm in my cave," says John, "she goes out to shop." Bonnie, apparently, will often thank John for dinner, even after she's cooked it. "She treats me as if I'd provided the meal, because I work hard and she is looking for a way to acknowledge my part in things." For his part, he doesn't have to be asked 769 times to change light bulbs or take out the rubbish. "In the Martian world, what's valued are things that make money. Changing bulbs and emptying trash don't make money... that's how a man's mind works. But if you ask him to do these things as if you were asking him for the first time, then give him a little reward by saying `Oh, thanks so much', he'll soon jump to it as soon as you ask. Bonnie only has to say `trash' now, and I'll stop anything to take it out."

But can't women be Martians? Can't they value "achievement, power and goals"? Wouldn't you say Margaret Thatcher was a Martian? "Of course, women can be Martians. But when a woman comes to me who appears to be from Mars, I say: `OK, you've developed your Martian side, but let's look at why, somewhere in your past, someone has ridiculed, minimised or put down your Venusian feelings.' " So a woman who wants to achieve isn't normal? "Somewhere along the line I would see there was a wound that needed healing." Would you say you were pro-women, John? "I'm really into women having careers and everything!"

So, who exactly is John Gray? He grew up in Austin, Texas, in a family of seven children. The family sounds brilliantly dysfunctional. His younger brother, Jimmy, was a manic depressive who eventually shot himself in the head. His father was an oil executive who "wasn't a great communicator. He loved us, but he'd been a sergeant in the army, and we would have to stand to attention before going to church on Sunday morning at a certain time and be in our suits. He actually had a loudspeaker." God, how very The Sound of Music, I say. "Yes. When we went to see the movie, and Von Trapp did that whistle, the reaction from the audience was: `Oh, how horrible.' But my reaction was: `This is perfectly normal to me.' " How did your mother cope? "Well, my father always travelled a lot. He probably figured he'd do less damage that way."

Years later, when John had just married Bonnie and started out on the self-help lark, his father died in the trunk of a car. He'd picked up a couple of hitchhikers in Texas, who ended up stealing his money and locking him in his trunk. He died of heat asphyxiation. John, who was honeymooning in Canada, flew back and insisted on visiting the sight of his father's death. He even climbed inside the trunk to get a more vivid sense of his father's last moments. While inside, he noticed his father had prised off one of the tail lights, presumably for air. He stuck a hand out. At this point, one of his brothers shouted: "Try to reach round and press the button to open the trunk." John opened the trunk. And this taught him a lesson: "There are so many people in the world who are locked in trunks, and need someone on the outside to tell them how to get out." This man even thinks in aphorisms that sound wholly profound, until you realise they aren't.

After graduating from high school, he bummed about a bit, experimenting with dope and LSD, until getting into Transcendental Meditation - "a great way of getting high without wrecking your body". He went on to spend most of his twenties as a devotee of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, rising through the TM ranks to eventually become his personal assistant, remaining celibate for those nine years, and living with him at his headquarters in Switzerland. Then, once he'd decided he'd "gone as far as you can go" with TM, he retired from monkhood and settled in California to study psychology via correspondence and to start touring Making Love Workshops. This went well until a friend said: "John, you're great at what you do, but you treat women and men as if they're the same, and they're not."

"I had resistance to that, because I'm real pro-women, but then I started looking at the research and found a lot that had started out trying to prove men and women were the same but had ended up proving they were different. And I saw how the differences created unnecessary tensions and frustrations. Then one day I saw the movie ET. And I thought, that's it! Men and women are from different planets! And I got goose bumps when I thought of it, so I knew right then it was a great discovery."

Can we truly learn something from all this? I don't know. I go home. It's dark by the time I get there, not because it's late, but because the bulb's gone in the hall, and has been gone for some time. My partner? He is in his cave, eating Kettle Chips and watching Star Trek. I say: "It's OK you didn't do the light bulb today. Or yesterday. Or last year. Maybe tomorrow?" He says: "Are you drunk?" I soon was.

"When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences, then love will blossom." (p 14)

`How To Get What You Want and Want What You Have' (Vermilion, pounds 9.99); `Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus' (Thorsons, pounds 9.99)