Just when it seems like everyone has their own YouTube channel and no one can even eat a meal without posting a photo of their plate to all their followers on social media, you find someone who lives their life totally offline. They go to restaurants and don’t “check in” on Facebook when they arrive. They have a meal and don’t Yelp about it afterward. They have quiet birthdays, mark milestones without photos of themselves taken by themselves, keep closely held opinions and beliefs.

They exist. They thrive. They are certain they are missing nothing. They live full lives in real life. Sometimes, it isn’t even that they aren’t up on technology because they have the latest iPhone and the latest apps. It’s not even a generational thing. They just don’t crave attention.

Imagine that. Some people just don’t.

SIMILARILY, it sometimes seems the world is divided into people who really want to be in the newspaper or on television and those who really don’t. It’s not an either/or, of course. Context matters most, and sometimes the most reticent person suddenly wants to tell their story just because of the nature of the story. And it also sometimes seems the people who really, really want attention aren’t nearly as interesting as the ones who don’t.

I can’t even tell you how many times this has happened over the years:

I show up to somebody’s house or some pre-arranged meeting point and spend an hour or more listening to somebody’s great story, asking questions, learning about what’s going on and how they feel about it. And then, after all of that mutual investment of time and that sort of connection that happens when somebody tells you a story, as I’m saying my goodbyes and heading to my car, the question flies up like a panicked hand pulling an emergency brake on a rolling train: “You’re not going to write about this for the paper, are you?”

Never mind that I had called ahead and made an appointment for an interview. Never mind that I’d been listening and asking questions and taking notes for hours. In some cases, never mind that they were the very ones who contacted me and pitched the story, pitched it hard, telling me what a great read this would be and how cool whatever the story angle is.

There’s a phenomenon in journalism known as “source’s regret” and that’s not what this is. Rather, it’s a person realizing they are part of the story and they might, therefore, attract attention. Attention is catnip for some, kryptonite for others. I think every journalist has navigated the tender negotiations of convincing a reticent person it will all be OK. Usually it is.

All this is just to say that I’m grateful when anybody works up the nerve to share a story for the newspaper. All media is now social media, and human-interest stories where the human isn’t very interested in attention have a special place among the look-at-me clamor.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.