What are the postmodern tenets in Carver's "What We Talk about When We Talk about Love?"

I think that one of the strongest postmodern elements in
Carver's short story is a relatively simple one.  There is no answer.  There are no
answers provided to the title question.  What do people talk about when people talk
about love?  At best, one can only surmise yet another postmodern element.  The most
people can do in terms of articulating the condition of love is to talk about their own
experiences.  Mel and Terri end up talking about their own experiences about love. Terri
believes that her ex really did love her, Mel disagrees.  Mel turns to the story of "the
old fart" as his reference point about love.  In the end, no one can achieve a
transcendent answer, and so the only notion evident is the idea of one's sense of self. 
In a typical postmodern predicament, one has voice, but is unable to gain anything
outside of oneself in the process.  The hope for a transcendent and unifying answer is a
futile one.

At the same time, one cannot even take solace
in the articulation of individual voice.  It is deliberate that Carver constructs the
entire conversation to take place with the presence of alcohol as part of the decision
making process.  This reflects that any decision, any action, any thought, any word
spoken is distorted to a great degree.  There is simply no real way to ascertain
anything meaningful from the discourse because alcohol has impacted everything.  Slurred
speech, disjointed thoughts, repressed anger, latent hostility, and a stunned silence
could all be the actual articulations of what love is, but in reality it might be that
this is the result of alcohol.  One simply does not know and cannot ascertain any
totalizing answer.  It is here that the ending of the story so abruptly arrives when the
alcohol is over.  To this end, in another postmodern element, while answers are absent,
questions are even more abundant.