My player is glitching back and fourth and I don't know why

Question

I have a 2d game where the enemy sprite is following the player on the x axis. The enemy faces to the right and follows the player to the right if the player is on the right of it and the opposite if the player is on the left. But sometimes if I stop moving the player and let the enemy get up to it it's supposed to stop, face left, and have my player take damage but sometimes it just starts facing to the right and left at the same time super fast. Why?

Here is my code

# Import Libraries here...
import random
import pygame
from sys import exit
import random
from random import randrange
from time import sleep

pygame.init()
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

# Background Music
bg_music = pygame.mixer.Sound('music_zapsplat_astro_race.mp3')
bg_music.play(loops=-1)
bg_music.set_volume(0.3)


# Screen/background
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((1200, 535))
background = pygame.image.load("background1.jpg")
background = pygame.transform.rotozoom(background, 0, 2)

# Player
player_surf = pygame.image.load("player_sprites/player_right.png").convert_alpha()
player_rect = player_surf.get_rect(bottomright = (575, 470))
player_surf = pygame.transform.rotozoom(player_surf, 0, 2.5).convert_alpha()

# Health...
health = 50
health_font = pygame.font.Font('Pixeltype.ttf', 50)
health_display = health_font.render(f"Health {health}", True, (0, 0, 0))

# Enemy #1
enemy1_hp = 10
enemyx_position = randrange(1200, 1500)
enemy1_surf = pygame.image.load("enemy1sprites/enemy1_right.png").convert_alpha()
enemy1_rect = enemy1_surf.get_rect(bottomleft = ((enemyx_position), 462))
enemy1_surf = pygame.transform.rotozoom(enemy1_surf, 0, 2.5).convert_alpha()

# Game Loop
level_one = True
while level_one:
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            pygame.quit()
            exit()

    # Draw Images on the screen
    screen.blit(background, (0, 0))
    screen.blit(enemy1_surf, enemy1_rect)
    screen.blit(player_surf, player_rect)
    screen.blit(health_display, (550, 75))

    # Player Movement
    if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
        if event.key == pygame.K_LEFT:
            player_surf = pygame.image.load("player_sprites/player_left.png")
            player_surf = pygame.transform.rotozoom(player_surf, 0, 2.5)
            player_rect.x -= 4

        if event.key == pygame.K_RIGHT:
            player_surf = pygame.image.load("player_sprites/player_right.png")
            player_surf = pygame.transform.rotozoom(player_surf, 0, 2.5)
            player_rect.x += 4

        # Window Edge
        if player_rect.x >= 1075:
            player_rect.x = 1075
        elif player_rect.x <= 0:
            player_rect.x = 0

    # Enemy 1 AI
    if player_rect.x != enemy1_rect.x:
        if player_rect.x > enemy1_rect.x:
            enemy1_surf = pygame.image.load("enemy1sprites/enemy1_right.png")
            enemy1_surf = pygame.transform.rotozoom(enemy1_surf, 0, 2.5)
            enemy1_rect.x += 2
        elif player_rect.x < enemy1_rect.x:
            enemy1_surf = pygame.image.load("enemy1sprites/enemy1_left.png")
            enemy1_surf = pygame.transform.rotozoom(enemy1_surf, 0, 2.5)
            enemy1_rect.x -= 2

    # Collision with enemy
    if player_rect.x == enemy1_rect.x:
        enemy1_surf = pygame.image.load("enemy1sprites/enemy1_left.png")
        enemy1_surf = pygame.transform.rotozoom(enemy1_surf, 0, 2.5)
        health -= 0.03
        print(int(health))
        health_display = health_font.render(f"Health {int(health)}", True, (0, 0, 0))
        pygame.display.update()

    # Player Attacking
    if player_rect.x >= enemy1_rect.x + 200:
        print("test")

    elif player_rect.x <= enemy1_rect.x - 200:
        print('test')

    # Attacking
    else:
        if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
            if event.key == pygame.K_DOWN:
                enemy1_hp -= 1

    pygame.display.update()
    clock.tick(60)

I was expecting to see it work all the time but sometimes it works and about 25%-50% of the time it doesn't...

Answer 1

The enemy always moves by 2, so you must stop moving the enemy if the distance to the target is less than 2. Therefore, move the enemy only when the distance to the player is greater than or equal to 2:

if player_rect.x.= enemy1_rect:x:

if abs(player_rect.x - enemy1_rect.x) >= 2: