One piece of advice I’ve heard numerous times over the years goes something like this: surround yourself with people smarter than you.

This is great advice, don’t you think? While it does require one to keep their ego in check, the rewards are great when you do it.

It applies not only in real life, where, arguably, oftentimes we don’t have full control of who we interact with day to day, but also in the virtual world (where, it could be argued, we do have full control of who we interact with).

A recent example can be found in a comment one of my fabulous blogger friends made on a recent post of mine. In response to a comment I made about exiting the “dead bird app” (thanks Valerie Bertinelli for that epic descriptor), my blogger friend said she’s still on the aforementioned app but is not “twitterpated” with it.

Now, “twitterpated” is not a word I’ve ever heard (and I would guess many of you have not either). My first thought was that she had made up this silly word. Or maybe it was a weird typo. I thought about it for a bit and figured that the “pated” portion of the word was like the word “sated”, as in being satisfied.

I looked at the comment again a few days later, and thought perhaps I ought to google the word, for shits and giggles, you know? Not at all expecting that it was indeed a “real” word.

Alas-twitterpated is a real word! Per dictionary.com it means “excited or overcome by romantic feelings; smitten”. Now, I think I can assume that my lovely blogger friend, Crystal btw, was not trying to say she was not overcome by romantic feelings about the dead bird app, because that would be a ridiculous thing to say. No app should compel romantic feelings, right? Well, maybe a dating app for those who are single I suppose.

She was saying she was not “smitten” with the app. Though “twitterpated” is a much more fun and unusual way to say that, without a doubt. I was not twitterpated with the dead bird app either, that’s why I dumped it.

This is all to say that I appreciate those who are smarter than I. There’s loads of people who are, of course. And there’s ways I might be a little smarter than others. We all have something to offer.

Surrounding ourselves as much as we possibly can, IRL and online, by folks who are smarter than us has the potential to teach us so much. And if we are lucky, their “smarts” might just rub off a little on us.