I see I see BUT
I point your attention to the best reptile in that case. Which is of course a ball python. And I can hear you now, why a snake? Snakes are scary? They have no emotions? They just want to eat you?
Sure they can bite but they don’t want to eat you. Their defense is to become a ball when scared and when they know who you are (because they do remember faces) they’ll sit atop your head like a hat with a little radar as they taste the air. They’ll cuddle up on your arm or neck and eventually they feel like a body temperature scarf that exists solely to snuggle up to you.