ZZ Packer’s story “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” tackles the issues of teenage exploration of sexuality, loneliness, isolation, and relationships. The heroine, a young woman named Dina, is struggling to define herself and find ways to build relationships with people around her. Her attention is focused on another girl, Heidi. However, her indecisiveness and cynicism prevent her from being open about their relationship, facilitating her isolation.
Dina’s self-isolation, in this case, stems from her lack of experience in analyzing and interpreting her feelings and emotions. Due to her reclusive character and perceived intellectual superiority over other teenagers, she is puzzled when facing a person she genuinely likes. This situation results from underdeveloped emotional intelligence hindering Dina’s abilities for empathy and self-assessment.
Therefore, emotional isolation describes this particular form of her struggle. The fact that Heidi brightly expresses her affection only complicates the issue for Dina, as she is unsure how to respond to the other girl’s attention. For example, when Heidi puts her arm against Dina’s neck, she threatens, “Next time, I’ll have to chop it off” (Packer, 2000). At the same time, she expresses a more genuine and intimate pleasure from the act in her thoughts.
Dina’s struggles are further emphasized when Heidi tells her about her plans to go out with a man. Dina expresses her frustration in bright terms, calling her friend “insane” and warning her about the potential negative consequences of the affair (Packer, 2000). This scene is a bright example of Dina’s inability to express her growing feelings of attachment and sympathy healthily, emphasizing her emotional isolation.
ZZ Packer masterfully portrays Dina’s experience as an intelligent young woman struggling with her feelings and self-identification. Due to a lack of socializing, the heroine’s capabilities for self-assessment and emotional communication are not enough for her to build and maintain healthy relationships with people. Nevertheless, her acquaintance with Heidi, whom she feels affection toward, steadily breaks her emotional isolation and helps her open up, though in rather specific ways.
Reference
Packer, ZZ. (2000). Drinking coffee elsewhere. The New Yorker. Web.