endearing

He diligently befriended Cordelia Scaife May, an heiress to Andrew Mellon’s fortunes who funded forest preservation across Pennsylvania and believed in curtailing population growth, endearing himself to her with gauzy appeals.

It’s annoying and endearing at the same time.

The journalist turned filmmaker “was actually quite complex, much like the female heroines who weren’t necessarily endearing off the bat,” Kaplan says.

So the way to counteract that is by giving him an endearing quality.

It makes sense that he is initially gun-shy having just ended a marriage, but his long-term passivity does not make him endearing.