When I was a kid in elementary school, my teacher would on occasion bring her pet snake to the classroom. He was a male boa constrictor named Measter. I liked him at the time. She would put Measter on my neck, and he’d slither around it and lick me in the ear and I had absolutely no fear at all of him attacking me in any way or hissing at me, or showing any aggression. He was a friendly snake. Recently however, I’ve had a couple close encounters with a snake one of them being a coral snake in my front yard, and another was a big, or at least long black snake in my garage. When I opened the garage door getting ready to park my motorcycle, I saw the snake I just described the best I could, and as I pulled in, it just turned around and slithered away from me. That particular encounter really scared me. I never got bit, or hissed at or anything. However, these close encounters along with some videos and documatires I’ve watched about snakes, as well as hearing stories about pet snakes killing and eating children whole, and poisonous snakes coming after somebody with the intention to attack and inject all its venom into the person have now got me utterly paranoid about snakes, and yet I’m somewhat fascinated with them at the same time.
Do snakes usually come after people on sight to attack them even without any provocation? Is my paranoia or fear of snakes entirely or partially justifiable?