Robinson is a former teacher of English literature and creative writing and, as of 2006, is a full-time writer and editor. In the following essay, Robinson examines how Eisenberg gives a voice to what is left unsaid in “Someone to Talk To.”

In her review of Deborah Eisenberg's All Around Atlantis in the Houston Chronicle, Paula Friedman writes that Eisenberg's “uncannily wise stories give haunting voice to what is often left painfully unsaid.” Friedman's observation aptly describes the interactions between the characters in “Someone to Talk To.”

The opening scene sets the tone for the story. Aaron Shapiro's girlfriend Caroline is leaving him. In this potentially raw moment, the emotion is both unexpressed and displaced. Displacement is a psychological defense mechanism in which there is an unconscious shift of emotions from the original object to a more acceptable substitute. In this instance, the recipient of Aaron and Caroline's...