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LAU YAN SHAN, Mentor and the Protégé is your primary love story!

The Mentor and the Protégé is a love story about more than love for love's sake. In it, love grows out of a deeper need to learn and understand other aspects of your love through the teaching's of someone else. Love isn't the only thing you're after. You want power, success, attention, maybe even fame. You want to be recognized, doted on, and adored for your talents. And the object of your desire is the person best suited to provide you with these things — a boss, a mentor, a teacher, or a troubled genius.

This archetypal story is the basis of many great tales of love — usually involving an older man falling for a younger woman. Hamlet flirted with his mother. Jane Eyre fell for her stern, older boss. Jackson Pollock married a less-accomplished painter.

Similarly, the object of your affection can take the place of an absent parent or role model, providing security and nurturance. Whatever the reason, you're likely to feel a boost to your self-image when you're with this person. Just as this love story overpowers you, you might wish to be overpowered by someone stronger, wiser, and more accomplished than yourself. Your love story starts out innocently enough. Did you recently take a job working for an amazing boss? Has a teacher or mentor taken a special interest in your work? Maybe a long-time family friend stopped by for a visit, and revealed a fascinating side you've never seen before. The attention this person gives you is just what you're craving. From there, it's not a huge leap to falling in love.

In "My Fair Lady" a bet to train a poor woman in the ways of high society blossoms into romance. An older gent tumbles head over heels for a much younger woman in "Gigi." When secretary Tess McGill (played by Melanie Griffith) finds out her boss has stolen her idea in the movie "Working Girl," she gets revenge not only by taking her boss's place but stealing her beau. Bridget Jones has an affair with her boss, and in "The Graduate" Benjamin Braddock is sleeping with the wife of his father's boss. Sometimes these affairs work out; sometimes they don't. But the familiarity of this classic story itself is what brings them to life. You undoubtedly have seen yourself in some of these entertainments.