A lion at the Wanzhou Xishan Zoo in the southwest city of Chongqing, China is healing his wounded pride these days after a very public rejection by a potential mate that has now gone viral.
We’ve all seen it happen. A guy likes a girl and tries to make a move while maintaining his cool. He struts over after mustering enough confidence and then makes his move.
Then BAM.
Denied.
In the case of this lion, he prowled over, sat down, and attempted to lean over onto the lioness. It’s the lion version of the old “yawn and sneak” attempt to get your arm around your date.
But it turns out this lioness wasn’t interested.
Instead, she gets up and walks away.
As if that weren’t embarrassing enough, the male doesn’t realize she’s not there anymore and completes the lean. Without anything to break his fall, he suffers the ultimate rebuff/humiliation combo.
And it’s true what they say – the bigger they are the harder they fall. And this guy falls straight onto the cold, hard floor of concrete rejection.
But he plays it cool. Kind of.
He takes a big stretch outward, both looking around to see what happened and trying to pretend that he was going for the fall and stretch all along.
Hey, even lions have egos that need to be protected.
For many of the thousands of viewers, what was momentarily hilarious then seemed kind of sad as they commented on the small, concrete enclosure these two majestic animals were being kept in.
The zoo is not like the ones we’re used to seeing in big cities where animals have natural habitats to roam, but according to the UK’s Daily Mail, the facility – which opened in 1955 – also “acts as a base for research and protection of wild animals,” so it appears they are involved in some animal welfare activities.
But according to guests who have visited, the zoo is located in the center of a traffic-congested city, is mostly made of concrete, and feels uninviting to both humans and animals. It holds elephants, lions, tigers, leopards, pandas, hippos, brown bears, monkeys, exotic birds, and reptiles exhibits.
It’s possible that things will improve for the animals as Chongqing becomes a more and more popular tourist city. But as it stands now, the zoo has some work to do before it lures many animal lovers.
As for the lion pair, it’s clear the male was trying to make the most of their situation by getting close to his enclosure mate.
Courtship rituals involving lions often involve some nuzzling.
While lionesses in the wild can mate up to 100 times a day (you go, girls!), that doesn’t mean they’re always in the mood.
As we all know, it can be hard to live in close quarters with someone. While we don’t know what the relationship is between the lions, even if they are mates her reaction could simply be a matter of needing some “me” time.
Be sure to scroll down below to watch the video a zoo guest caught of the incident.
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