Romantic Runner-Up

The guy who fails to get the girl. Specifically, the Nice Guy who the girl dated before she found Mr. Right.

You know, there isn't really anything wrong with this guy. He's just mostly a little too dull. Somebody else can make the jokes he tells a little funnier. He could use a little help in the wardrobe department. He loses a lot of women to the taller, more handsome, more suave guys (and/or the bad-boy types).

The reason this character shows up so often in stories is likely to make a statement about the mysterious ways of love and about how the chemistry between two people is something that cannot be predicted. This message is a little undercut by the fact that certain people seem to be exactly the type to be cast as second-runner in a romance. Perhaps the chemistry is not so mysterious, after all.

Note that while this trope largely applies to male characters, it can occasionally affect female characters as well, particularly in Love Triangle relationships where there's two women and one guy.

Sometimes called "The Baxter" (but not Ted Baxter) from C.C. Baxter of The Apartment, a sad sack who actually gets the girl. The Michael Showalter movie The Baxter deconstructs the concept. Compare Hopeless Suitor, Romantic False Lead and No Sparks. See also Did Not Get the Girl and Everything but the Girl when it's the hero who is the romantic runner-up.

Anime and Manga

 * Kotori is a female example from Da Capo. Many of the characters mention that she's popular, she's a good cook, smart, and she likes spending a lot of time with Junichi. Many characters also comment that those two would be a good match for each other. But unfortunately for her, Junichi's jealous sister Nemu doesn't like him spending time with any girls but her.
 * Sakura is another example. She even fought with Nemu at first, but eventually gives him up at the end of the first Season.
 * Kentarou Nara from the anime/manga School Rumble. Oddly enough, he was originally going to be the main character of the show, but was nonetheless relegated as a side character with little screen time or role in the story.
 * Hojo, in Inuyasha, is unbelievably and relentlessly nice to Kagome, but his name isn't in the title, so of course he's doomed to providing lots of unnecessary medicine while she runs off to save the world with Inuyasha. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to mind much. Although he never actually dated her and she wasn't ever actually interested in him, though her classmates did try and nudge her in his direction before she met Inu Yasha.
 * Similarly, in Ranma ½, Akane Tendo openly considers Ryoga Hibiki to be much nicer and sweeter then her Compassionate Critic and No Social Skills fiance Ranma Saotome, but she's more or less Oblivious to Love when it comes to him. That said, Ryoga does find somebody else... a pity that his new relationship wasn't handled very well.
 * Yuuno Scrya from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Nice guy, helpful, supportive; he was the one who gave Nanoha her calling but relationship-wise it just didn't go anywhere.
 * An odd example is Kyougo Monou from X 1999. He did get to marry the girl he loved, Saya, and even had two children with her (Fuma and Kotori)... but he remained as the Romantic Runner Up and Unlucky Childhood Friend since he knew Saya loved him but not that way, as she was in love with  and married Kyougo mostly to fulfill her destiny.
 * This seems to be more common in Shojo works. Suzuno Osugi's unnamed husband from Fushigi Yugi would count. He seems to know and accepts that he is 2nd to his wife's pretty boy star crossed lover as he shows no protest in her being reunited with her lover for eternity after death.
 * Actually, didn't Suzuno remain a spinster willingly to keep herself faithful to Tatara, and her grandson Toki was just adoptive?
 * Ayashi no Ceres features a similar situation where Yuuhi readily accepts his romantic loss to Aya's Mysterious Protector, Tooya..
 * Seemingly played straight then subverted in Paradise Kiss..
 * Female example: Anju Kitahara in the Marmalade Boy anime. Marmalade Boy has actually more than one example (Ginta, anyone?), but Anju is the one who fits the most.
 * Dr. Itsuki of RahXephon, anyone? Haruka initially dated someone else before the Mu arrived, then she dated Itsuki in college. He who developed unrequited feelings for her. Several years the events of the main series occured and Itsuki's chances dropped to zero.
 * In Corsair, Aura, a plucky (if naive) girl had being planning to marry Canale for a very long time. Though Canale really respects and cares for her he does not want to pursue a relationship for reasons even other than the obvious, and he ends up with the Jerkass Bastard Boyfriend instead, who is something of an adopted sibling to Aura, just to rub it in.
 * Eleanor of Victorian Romance Emma is a female example. There's nothing wrong with her, it's just that William had already fallen in love with someone else.
 * Dr. Araide in Detective Conan. Dude's handsome, soft-spoken, rich, a male Yamato Nadeshiko... and he happens to have romantic interest in a young girl named Ran, who has been smitten with the Guile Hero Shinichi/Conan already for years.
 * Misty from Vandread falls into this trope. She never really had a chance since she was introduced in Season 2, and her romantic rival, Dita, was a part of the ship's crew, and they didn't want to see her miserable (nor did she want to ostracize them any further). so she painfully gave up pursuing Hibiki, and while she tries to play off her pursuit of him as "being bored", she later goes to the park alone to cry.
 * Reito of Mai-HiME, for Mai. Mai strongly considered him at first, but ended up with Yuuichi in the end.

Film
"Katie: Listen, Coop - last night was really great. You were incredibly romantic and heroic, no doubt about it. And that's great. But I've thought about it, and my thing is this: Andy is really hot. And don't get me wrong, you're cute too, but Andy is like, * cut* . From marble. He's gorgeous. He has this beautiful face and this incredible body, and I genuinely don't care that he's kinda lame. I don't even care that he cheats on me. And I like you more than I like Andy, Coop, but I'm 16. And maybe it'll be a different story when I'm ready to get married, but right now, I am entirely about sex. I just want Andy. I just wanna take him and grab him and fuck his brains out, ya know? So that's where my priorities are right now. Sex. Specifically with Andy and not with you. But you're really nice. Everyone thinks so. And I still totally wanna be friends."
 * The Michael Showalter film The Baxter is a parody from the perspective of one of these guys.
 * Ralph Bellamy in just about any movie where he's not playing Franklin D. Roosevelt. Were TV Tropes around in the '40s, he'd be the Trope Namer.
 * Actor James Marsden has quite the Baxter career going, playing blandly nice guys who fail to get the girl one way or another in Superman Returns, X-Men, Enchanted, The Notebook...
 * He does get the girl in Superman Returns. Strangely enough, that film casts Superman as the Baxter. In the first hour, at least. In the end, he still loses, Lois pretty much states that they're done as a couple and she's going to pine for Superman, because she really loves him and.
 * And he gets a girl in Enchanted too -- just not the one he was originally looking for.
 * And in 27 Dresses, but he's more of a Deadpan Snarker there.
 * Until 27 Dresses, there was a joke that if James Marsden is in the movie, the girl he loves is in love with someone else.
 * Even then, that was still true for the first half of that movie!
 * And in X-Men, where Jean even marries him. Suck on that, Wolverine!
 * Until Jean . Damn Real Life Writes the Plot.
 * Sam in Crossing Delancey is one of these, but ends up winning the girl anyway.
 * This page describes Pirates of the Caribbean James Norrington's entire existence -- even though he is played by Jack Davenport, he cannot compete with Will or Jack. Even in Dead Man's Chest, when he was dirty, drunk, and hot as hell. Poor fellow.
 * Walter in Sleepless in Seattle. This is a guy who was about to get married, and basically gets dumped for some guy who lives on the other side of the country and whom his fiance has never even met.
 * Julian in Somethings Gotta Give. Diane Keaton dumps the much-younger, suave doctor Keanu Reeves for Jack Nicholson. Sad Keanu, indeed.
 * Speaking of Trope Namer Michael Showalter, how about Coop from Wet Hot American Summer? Katie's speech to him at the end basically epitomizes this trope:


 * Dan from Over Her Dead Body.
 * Michael Cera in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Arrested Development.
 * Maybe he starts out as this but his character ultimately gets the girl in both of these.
 * Cary Elwes's character from Liar Liar.
 * Ben Stiller in Reality Bites.

Literature

 * Richard Mayhew, the Everyman in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere who refused The Call.
 * Sam from Charlaine Harris's The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries books. He's her employer, and first indicated her interest when she got into her first serious relationship with another man. They're just good friends by now.
 * This is part of Demandred's backstory in The Wheel of Time, and is apparently why he ended up as a mass-murdering evil general.
 * In particular, it's massive RPT MASSIVE resentment of his status as second fiddle to the Dragon. Almost as smart, powerful, handsome, etc, etc. IIRC, he wound up playing for the side of evil so he could finally be superior.
 * Frank in the Outlander series has the unfortunate distinction of first losing his wife in a magic rock, and then, just as he's getting over her, geting her back only to find that she's still in love with the guy she married in the 18th century.
 * Nicci of the Sword of Truth is a female example. Though she eventually becomes the closest confidante and magical advisor to her love, she remains the No. 2 woman in his life.
 * Jacob Black of Twilight. Specifically in New Moon when he was still nice to Bella till she showed he would choose Edward over him, after that he started to get all Alpha Male on her trying to get her grounded, kissing her by force and later by emotional blackmail. In the end he managed to get Bella to admit she loved him, but she still loved Edward more.
 * Len Levy not only doesn't get Jessica Darling in Second Helpings (or the later books in the Sloppy Firsts series), he loses her to his best friend.
 * Several characters in Harry Potter:.

Live Action TV

 * Zack Allan in Babylon 5 with regards to Lyta Alexander.
 * Billy Keikeya on Battlestar Galactica Reimagined.
 * For that matter, Apollo as well. Sure, he steals but then it turns out . To top it all off,.
 * Which is hilarious, because in some ways Anders also fits. While, yes,.
 * Galen "Chief" Tyrol also sort of counts. First, his girlfriend, who he's not supposed to be seeing anyway, turns out to be a cylon. Then, . Last, but far from least,.
 * Dean Forester from Gilmore Girls. He may have been Rory's first ever boyfriend, but he eventually loses her to Jess and Logan as the series progressed.
 * Harvey Kinkle in the later seasons of Sabrina the Teenage Witch..
 * was a very good version of this in Road to Avonlea. It made perfect sense for  to want to marry him - and for her to dump him after.
 * David, Phoebe's on-and-off boyfriend on Friends, showed up once again in season nine and proposed. Phoebe promptly rejected him for Mike Hannigan, whom she ultimately married. To add insult to injury, the writers went out of their way to point out that the inoffensive David was a penniless failure by this point.
 * Xander Harris from Buffy the Vampire Slayer qualifies for this trope on multiple occasions. Although he is generally presented as a 'nice guy', virtually every woman he loves either rejects him outright or leaves him, generally for a supernatural being. Buffy rejects him for the more romantic Angel. Cordelia ultimately also winds up with Angel after breaking up with him. Willow, after pining after him for the first two seasons, ultimately chooses Oz over him. (This is a situation similar to David's, above, as the entire purpose of Xander and Willow's brief affair was to demonstrate that Willow was over him.) Even Anya sleeps with Spike after breaking up with Xander.
 * Subverted when Buffy does begin to develop romantic feeling for Xander- and Xander rejects her for her little sister, Dawn (and previous seasons, Dawn had a crush on Xander and he rejected her.) who he was already involved with (and says he's in love with) by the time Buffy confesses her feelings.
 * During the TV run, Xander also had the peculiar distinction that literally every woman he went out with had tried to kill him, or would try to kill him (not always intentionally, but it worked out that way in practice), including at least a couple who tried to kill him on the FIRST DATE.
 * Also, Spike himself. And on a century-plus streak going at it, despite numerous metamorphoses, whether he be human, rabid young vampire, sarcastic and surprisingly sane old vampire, chipped reluctantly-good vampire, soulful good vampire, soulful bad vampire, or all-out champion of good.
 * Hell, yeah, Spike. The irony being that most of the time he's losing out to Angel or Angelus, probably because while Angel was taking levels in badass he was getting hit by Badass Decay so hard the trope had his name for a while.
 * Riley Finn is really a more appropriate example. Xander broke it off with Anya, and Spike had Harmony, he just didn't want her. Riley loved Buffy, and she didn't love him back. The interesting thing is that Riley is otherwise more the Prince Charming type. The problem is that Buffy is... well, take your pick: a) just interested in him because he's the 'normal' guy, b) not Angel.
 * ...did anybody else notice that everybody gets rejected for Angel? I mean, it's logical since he's hot and awesome and Even the Guys Want Him, but still. Every man is rejected in favour of him.
 * Bashir on Deep Space Nine. After Jadzia is gone, Dax's next host Ezri tells him that if Worf hadn't come along, he would have been the one.
 * 'Course, the situation is promptly reversed. Ezri goes out with Worf for a while before realizing that her feelings for him are just residual versions of Jadzia's. She dumps him for Julian. Irony? Yes.
 * Tom Demming from Castle is a mix of this and a Romantic False Lead, as while his arc is only a few episodes and he exists, essentially, to wake Castle the hell up, he is a genuinely good guy who really does care about Beckett and seems to make her happy.
 * Subverted in Sex and the City Steve looked like he would be this for Miranda, and they even broke up for a while. But in the end his sheer averageness was just the kind of stability she needed.
 * Boomer of the little-known children's show Maddigan's Quest. Even before the series, Garland saw him as more a goofy friend than anything, and after Timon shows up, he's got no chance. Even when Timon, Garland still prefers him. I mean, ouch.
 * Between her roles on The Office and Parks and Recreation, Rashida Jones seems to be building a career on playing this character.
 * The office, definitely, but on Parks and Rec, she's playing a super-cute, Even the Girls Want Her Hospital Hottie. Of her three relationships, she ended two of them, and the third wasn't ended for another person. Her relationship with Mark ultimately ends because he becomes this to her although there is no one else she is interested in at the time.
 * Artemus Gordon ends up this way at the end of almost every episode of The Wild Wild West. Having saved the day (and usually the girl) most of the time, he turns to talk to either her or Jim West and finds that the girl is now in Jim's arms. Rarely, Artie gets the girl, but it is always Played for Laughs.
 * Brian Krakow in My So-Called Life may be the ultimate Deconstruction of this trope. Especially since he gets his own runner-up in Delia Fisher, and shows you exactly what the real-life consequences of at least two tropes, and a complete and utter crushing deconstructive subversion of a third.
 * Zach was this to Seth in The OC with regards to Summer. A nice guy, son of a congress man, confident, mature, and yet just not quite what Summer really wanted. The implication when he was Put on a Bus was that he went into business with George Lucas, so maybe it all worked out in the wash.
 * How I Met Your Mother deconstructs this trope in the episode Shelter Island. Ted sees himself as the Dogged Nice Guy, and even invites fiancee Stella's Jerkass ex-boyfriend Tony to their wedding. Only when she leaves him at the altar does he realise that Tony was actually the romantic lead of that particular love story, while Ted is the Romantic Runner-Up.
 * When Tony later writes and sells a movie script based on the events, Ted is pissed off and humiliated because he doesn't even get this characterization in the movie. Instead, the character based on him is an outright villain who goes around kicking dogs and doesn't even care about the female lead; he just wants to keep her away from her soul mate for laughs. The worst part is that the character, Jed Mosely, even refers to himself using Ted's real name during a Jerkass "Do you know who I am?!" rant.
 * Mickey Smith from Doctor Who is the embodiment of this trope. He's decent, okay-looking, just an average guy with a hot girlfriend...until some guy with a leather jacket and a nice ride sweeps her off her feet.
 * Lancelot from Merlin has such low self-esteem that on realizing that Arthur is in love with Guinevere, gives up on his own romantic hopes without a fight or even checking with Guinevere herself to see what man she prefered (and at that point, he would have almost certainly been her first pick).
 * Given a twist in the final season of Frasier in which Frasier is the bland nice guy who gets the girl while the more exciting boyfriend doesn't. Aspects of this trope are played straight by the boyfriend Frank, who is overall an extremely nice and friendly guy and a committed environmentalist.
 * Part of the rivalry betweenn Jack and Sawyer for Kate's affections in Lost. Jack is a very good guy, skilled, likeable and an excellent surgeon. Sawyer is dangerous, charming, and mysterious as well as almost entirely unlikeable. Ben points this out to Sawyer telling him that ,on the island, he's the dashing adventurous bad boy while Jack is the bland doctor. Off the island, Sawyer is two bit ex-con and Jack is the respected, well-educated Doctor.

Theater

 * Paris, of Romeo and Juliet.
 * This was a standard trope for Gilbert and Sullivan.

Web Comics

 * In Punch an Pie, Heather's mother describes Heather's ex-boyfriend as squarely fitting into this trope (he hasn't been seen, though). Angela's ex-boyfriend from the prequel had a lot of these traits but doesn't quite fit the trope.