Hello! So I have a pretty silly question but I don't have many people to ask who will actually answer it correctly. So I am asking you lovely people!

I am a pretty short and small woman, but I love reticulated pythons. I have loved them for years as well as researched them, watched any documentary that slightly mentioned them and grabbed any chance I had to be near one of them. To me they aren't animals, they are people in a sense- on the inside. Or maybe it's the other way around and we are the animals... my point being, we aren't so different after all. Their intelligence, size and beauty is so attractive I can't stand it. I have had people tell me that I can't own or maintain a reticulated python by myself because I am too small- which I agree, I shouldn't be handling anything over 8 feet while I am alone. But how then will I ever come to own one if not through partnership with another? I could go my whole life without being able to experience these animals because they are formidable in size.

With that, I must ask, if you are a smaller person do they really view you as a possible food item? I'd hate it if so, but I wouldn't blame them. I guess I have just had a lot of negative people get to my head on the topic I know they are intelligent enough to decipher the hand that feeds them, but we are mammals, too. I have many snakes of different kinds, so I am not new to their requirements or even mentalities. I just hoped that being so intelligent, maybe a reticulated python wouldn't always think of me as a potential food item Even if I am 5 feet and they are 20 feet.

All comments are welcomed and accepted. I know it's a pretty scattered question, it's just I am stepping on eggshells trying not to offend people- I don't know how people feel on the topic and I don't want to sound stupid. Thanks for reading!