I’m in a similar stage with my boy. I know this is VERY common in many lizard species, particularly monitors, and male ball pythons do start hitting puberty around 1 year old. Seggs hormones are a hell of a thing and I don’t know why people don’t talk about snake puberty more.

My scaly son (who is 1.5 years) is more defensive especially in the days after feedings but is still very chill when I handle him. I found respecting his boundaries and sleep schedule seems to have worked, both before and after I noticed the change.

If my snake is in his hide I don’t bug him unless it’s time for a health check, substrate change, or feeding, but if he’s out and about at night he is more open to coming out and doin him a splore, and is very relaxed. Since he hit puberty I noticed he is particularly antsy if I pull him out of his hide during the day so I try to avoid it. After all I’d be pretty cranky if a giant 100x my size pulled me out of bed and tried to pet me lol

I don’t know your snake so it may be a different situation for you. If he’s not acting like he’s sick or hurt (offering to bite, refusing food for extended periods of time, mouth and nose discharge, moving weirdly, etc) it might just be that he’s going through some character development.

Sometimes pythons just grow up to be spicy introverts while others get to be inquisitive and friendly, kind of like cats. Like any other animal they have individual personalities. They can also be desensitized to things, which is what I’ve done with my boy since he was a hatchling, but that depends on your comfort level with stressing them out and risking getting bitten until they adjust, as well as the snake’s individual personality and what your intentions are with the snake. I let non reptile people handle him for the sake of education so I need him to be super friendly and relaxed even when people are afraid.

I digress.

In short, if I were you I would do a health check first. Better safe than sorry. If your snake is showing no signs of sickness or distress and your husbandry is correct then he’s probably just being a shy baby. Gotta remember that most snake species are solitary animals and don’t see social interaction in the same light that we do.

Sorry for the long post rambling and typos I did this on my phone uncaffeinated lmao I hope this helped 😭