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Notes -
Of Star Trek protagonists, Kirk perhaps pays the least, but he does pay over and over again. (Despite his reputation, he hardly every gets the girl, and he loses them all the time)
Holmes is canonically kind of a miserable guy who, when he doesn't have crimes or writing of monographs to keep him occupied, gets strung out on cocaine. He's asexual by nature and appears to enjoy none of the other pleasures of life except smoking. Watson is actually quite successful, married (though eventually widowed, and without issue), and often happy, but he's the chronicler, not the protagonist.
Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe is another Holmesian character; he has one pleasure besides solving mysteries, which is eating himself to obesity. His Watsonian sidekick is Archie Goodwin, who gets beat up and arrested a lot. Unlike Watson, Goodwin never marries.
Mike Hammer is the archetype of the noir detective; if you think they don't pay, you don't know the genre (not GETTING paid, now, that happens on the regular)
Yeah, Archie never marries, but he does have Lily Rowan as his long-term companion (conveniently there to go dancing with and off on trips, but never demanding 'put a ring on it' and rich enough to pay her own way and never be dependent on him) and plenty of casual female interest throughout the series of books. Archie is the one Wolfe sends out to seduce female characters for information and this is made quite explicit in one novel. I think some of that was the view (before Sexual Liberation) that being the gay bachelor playing the field was the male fantasy instead of being tied down from an early age with the ol' ball and chain and a couple of kids, and possibly Stout's own character traits as well.
Wolfe also likes beer and orchids, don't reduce him to just being a gourmet! (as well as a gourmand, there's even a cook book)!
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