Sometimes women go for the strongest, the bravest, the most competent badass in town, on duty at all times to rescue them from supervillains, fight off potential love rivals with extreme prejudice, and carve their face on the moon on Valentine's day. ...And sometimes they just want the normal guy.
Thus, the Non-Action Guy or The Heart of a group will very often have the most luck with the opposite sex, and it may be their most obvious quality. This may be to make them seem manlier in lieu of their companions' capacity for violence, to take advantage of the fact that viewers will identify more with more normal characters, or merely to give the audience a good reason to root for them.
If the series has an active fandom, this character is the one with the widest variety of pairings in evidence.
Examples:
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Advertising
- The Most Interesting Man in the World is a lover, not a fighter, but he's also a fighter, so don't get any ideas.
Anime & Manga
- Black Lagoon. Revy - who, it is worth noticing is one of the best fighters on the show - has had several guys make passes at her. Admittedly none of the ones we see try to chat her up are action guys, but given her appearance and the general population of Roanapur some badass guy must have made a move. The only guy she's ever shown the slightest interest in is Rock.
- Code Geass - Lelouch is the most popular and hottest student in his school. Over a hundred girls try to get dates with him... in the same day. He is leading La Résistance and piloting Humongous Mecha, but none of them know that. They just know the elegant, skinny Bishōnen who can't even run up a flight of stairs, much less punch someone out. But he's beautiful. And it's not just the girls, either.
Comic Books
- Wee Hughie is the least murderous of all The Boys, and seems to be the only one with anything approaching a normal love life.
- In Star Wars: Lando, Lando Calrissian of course has this reputation, constantly saying this and that he Doesn't Like Guns. As it turns out, he's a crack shot and a fast draw. It's just that everyone who's ever driven him to actually using those skills soon ended up dead, so word never got around.
Films — Live-Action
- In the movie Van Helsing, the Plucky Comic Relief (and Q)
monkfriar manages to pick up a woman more or less by accident. By comparison the titular character kills his Love Interest by accident. - Who Framed Roger Rabbit:
Jessica: My honey-bunny was never very good behind the wheel.Eddie Valiant: A better lover than a driver, huh?Jessica: You better believe it, buster.
- Murder Party addresses this and responds to it in a rather harsh and grisly way. When Bill corners Chris in an art-room and Chris tells the other artists to fight for their lives, one answers gormlessly by saying this word for word and.... is immediately axed to death for it.
- In Batman & Robin Poison Ivy describes herself as this, which is why she keeps Bane around. She mainly just uses her charms and love dust to seduce anyone she comes across before using her Kiss of Death. Though she does fight against Batgirl when the latter arrives in her lair.
Literature
- Aramis of The Three Musketeers was the less brutal and had the most luck with women. And then D'Artagnan arrived, who did both.
- Compare Don Quixote's love life with that of his non-action servant and sidekick, Sancho Panza.
Live-Action TV
- Gaius Baltar of Battlestar Galactica is an unabashed Lovable Traitor and Dirty Coward, but he gets easily the most play of any man in the series. Must be the accent...
- The geeky, harmless Wash of Firefly is this trope - he's married to Zoe, the Amazonian Beauty. Simon also qualifies, but only after Serenity.
- In a roundabout way, this trope is ascribed to the titular character of Merlin. After Guinevere is arrested for witchcraft, Merlin makes a bid for her freedom, leading everyone to believe that he's in love with her. On trying to convince Arthur to help her find the real culprit behind the magic that Gwen has been arrested for, Morgana tells him that Merlin is "a lover, not a fighter" - though whether she actually believes this or not is debatable.
- Captain Jack Harkness of Doctor Who and Torchwood was a extreme version of this, at least until he met the Doctor and Rose and Took a Level in Badass. Or several.
- Boo in Orange Is the New Black claims to be one of these.
Music
- Michael Jackson cites the trope's name in one of his duets with Paul McCartney, "The Girl Is Mine".
- The Mc Janik song "gentleman" is about how a woman "wants a gentleman, doesn't need Rambo nor Demolition Man."
- The Lazy Lester song, "I'm a lover not a fighter", also covered by The Kinks, is the Trope Namer.
Professional Wrestling
- Mark Henry quoted the trope when proclaiming himself Sexual Chocolate, the big ladies man.
Theatre
- Ride the Cyclone: In "Space Age Bachelor Man", Ricky title-drops the trope as his response to the Zolarian cat people expecting him to fight the dog people. As he points out, he's their Chosen One to repopulate their species, he's not warrior material. As a result, he convinces both dog and cat people to stop fighting for The Power of Love—or, as he calls it, the pleasures of making love at zero gravity.
Video Games
- Punch-Out!!: "I'm a hugger, not a fighter. Take off, eh!"
- Fire Emblem Fates: Laslow says this almost word for word if he dies in classic mode.
- Streets of Rogue: Some enemies will run away saying "I'm a lover, not a fighter!"
Visual Novels
- Downplayed, if not subverted, with the protagonist of Melody. He doesn’t look to start fights with people, but he can indeed get in guys’ faces if they give Melody too much unwanted attention.
Web Animation
- Tucker of Red vs. Blue declares himself to be this often. Amusingly enough, the reverse is probably true—he's actually one of the best non-Freelancer fighters in the series, and his skill with women is largely an Informed Ability... with the information coming only from him.
Webcomics
- Elan of The Order of the Stick, as lampshaded at least once.
- Marena, the resident Lunar Exalted in Keychain of Creation, seems to be this for the the entirety of the first chapter and much of the second, an assumption made in large part due to her apptitude for Manipulation, shapeshifting and promiscuity being juxtaposed with several instances of her outright stating that she is useless in a fight. It should be noted, however, that Marena also happens to be a bloody liar, and as such failed to mention her Deadly Beastman Form(tm) until it was dramatically appropriate, so this is a bit of a subversion.
- Geoffry of Wiglaf and Mordred is Happily Married, but it is mentioned that if Janus ever dropped dead, over half the women in the Evil Lair would be fighting over him.
- Dhair of the webcomic Incubus Tales prefers to be this. however do NOT harm his friends, his family, or anyone who might BECOME his friend. He is a Defender.
Western Animation
- Sokka of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Sure, he can't bend elements with his mind, but he gets at least a Ship Tease with nearly every female character, and he eventually ends up becoming a Badass Normal.
- The Hair Bear Bunch: When Hair Bear tells Arnie the Lovesick Gorilla that the perfume the bears are concocting for him will make him a lady killer, Arnie replies "I'm not a killer. I'm a lover."
