Woman Spots A Turtle 'Flirting' With His Crush In The Most Annoying Way

No, romance isn’t dead. But evidently among eastern painted turtles, it’s really not looking too smooth.

Well, at least that’s from the perspective of a human passerby, who recently witnessed the turtles’ unusual courtship ritual firsthand.

The other day, Jamie Amalea Pappas dropped by Pennsylvania's John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge's freshwater tidal marsh. In it, her eyes landed upon two turtles engaged in some pretty interesting behavior.

One of the turtles, while swimming backwards in front of the other, repeatedly approached his companion to slap her on the face.

“I was fascinated,” Pappas told The Dodo. “I thought it was very cute and silly!”

She decided to record the scene:

Turns out, rather than being a show of aggression, this is actually how these turtles flirt.

“This video shows two eastern painted turtles in a courtship display,” Garrett White, a state biologist, told Philly Mag. “The male is the one doing the ‘slapping.'”

Apparently, that’s his way of showing his love interest just how athletic he is — and that she should give him a chance.

And who knows? Maybe romance did result from that turtle’s rather annoying-seeming display after all. The pair swam out of sight before Pappas could say for sure.

“It wouldn’t work on me!” she said. “But I try not to judge.”