I totally, 100% believe that my garters have absolutely no fear of me. I keep my garters in community groups, which I have found they seem to prefer over living alone. I decided to keep them this way after noticing that in early morning on my grandparents farm, the garters come out to sun themselves in the field, but do not lie alone, they are always laying in the grass in groups, out in the open, usaully 3-5 of them.
The females have the luxury of a 55 gallon long fish tank. And the males a separate one. These tanks are cleaned quite frequently. When I walk into the snake room, my garters are the ONLY snakes in that room that go zipping to the front of the glass. All are 100% tame and handleable. They all eat from my hands and they all are very inquisitive of my presence. If I stick my arm in the cage, I will have 5 garters up my arm in no time! I totally feel a bond with my garters and this is what has made me love them and cherish them far above my other snakes.
The same goes for my babies. Especially my hypo's five little ones. I recently lost the "runt" of that litter.... which I could see coming... he never really grew... shame
but as for the other four... I consider them my children! They sit in my hand when they eat their guppies and pinky chunks, (prevents fighting), they tolerate me wiping their little faces clean (prevents a jealous sibling from trying to eat her fishy smelling brother) and come straight to me when the cage is open.
I never really thought of snakes capable of "liking" a person or another snake, until I started keeping garters, and until I got ahold of behemoth and golianne. These two were a pair of half cornsnake half black ratsnakes, half siblings, that were together from hatchling days, hets for snow. By the time they arrived in my care they were six feet! tragedy struck a year later, golianne beame eggbound and lost the fight. She was able to lay just one egg before her passing. I incubated the egg and it began to hatch, but the baby died before he came out of the egg, and to think the only egg, and there was a 1 in 16 chance of getting a snow and he was just that! Behemoth, who steadily ate one a week, did not eat for three months after Golianne passed, and he was constantly restless as if searching for his cagemate. and to this day he will not pair with another mate. That expierience, along with my garters, totally changed my view of snakes.