1999, The 'Nice Guy' Syndrome, Self-Help Informational Resources, The Counseling Center for Human Development, The University of South Florida https://web.archive.org/web/19991013184527/http://usfweb.usf.edu/counsel/self-hlp/niceguy.htm
The nice guy, they say, finishes last. But in romantic relationships, the nice guy often isn't even in the running. […] The nice guy may have expressed an interest in dating you…. The nice guy is the person who you trust and feel comfortable with, but don't see as "fun" or "challenging" or really all that "interesting," other than as a friend, of course.

"My frustrations were pretty typical Nice Guy relationship issues," he says. "Not feeling appreciated, not feeling sexually desired by my wife. I didn't feel like...I received as much as I gave."

2005 September 18, "Dirty D.", Lost Romanticism and the Manwhore, DiaryLand, at uberfrau.diaryland.com
Nice guys are historically the grail of dating. […] As both Nora and I reminisced and compared how we were treated by the manwhore and by the nice guy, the manwhore always won out.

Plenty of men will treat women kindly, but Nice Guys like to think that behaving kindly earns them a gold star. It doesn't.

Nice guy

Meaning

Noun

Synonyms