It’s 9am on a Wednesday and not a single person wants to be here. Physics 101, the course that fulfills your science requirement for all non-science majors.

Some students have mastered the ability to sleep with their eyes open. I envy them.

Our professor is exactly who you imagine: middle-aged, white, wearing a tweed jacket and jeans, and definitely over-excited about a class he knows very well no one cares about.

Today he’s explaining how fast some kind of particle moves. He’s so into the material he can’t even keep his thoughts straight, frantically jumping across topics and forgetting to finish sentences.

“They move so fast, it’s like- Anyway for your homework you’re going to- And, I mean they go so fast, the human eye can’t even tell!”

A student raises his hand, and I raise my eyebrow. What could you possibly need to know?

“Professor, how do you figure out how fast they’re going?”

“Great question, great question! It’s really simple. You put a camera here, and a camera there, and then you trigger the camera at the moment the particle starts and the second camera captures when it ends, then you measure the distance and based on how fast-”

The kid next to me is literally snoring. The professor looks at me, and I smile back. Then the student raises his hand again.

“But, I mean…”

He looks around nervously as more and more students wake up, wondering the same thing I am: Where could you be going with this series of questions?

“I just mean, like, where do you get those cameras?”

“Another great question! Well, of course, they make these just for such occasions, and scientific institutions receive grants to-”

The student cuts him off, “But how much do they cost? I really can’t afford to buy a camera. Is there a way to borrow them for the assignment?”

And that’s when it hit me: This student was so confused by the professor’s lecture that he mistakenly believed the homework assignment was to determine how fast an invisible particle moved. He was nervous because he can’t afford to buy a camera, and embarrassed to reveal that in front of all his classmates.

The professor finally caught on and explained the whole thing, but the damage was done. All hope of connecting with this student was lost. And if the professor’s goal was to persuade a handful of 101 students to love physics and convert their major, he failed with this particular student before he even began.

Confusion creates anxiety, and anxiety creates animosity.

In our relentless search for human connection, let’s not forget that how you say something is as important, if not more, than what you say. You will not connect with someone if they don’t know what you’re talking about.

When in doubt, go for clarity. Clear communication opens the door to connection.