Well that's cool, we can disagree :) I take your point that maybe the difference between this exchange and other moments when the film shows Pat's behaviour as disturbing is that he's interacting with a depressed character. I don't have enough knowledge to interrogate the film's approach to mental illness/relationships between people with different kinds of conditions so I won't comment further on this. I'm sure more knowledgeable people than me would have a lot to say about it.

I think you're interpreting the scene with a 'the author is dead' frame and examining the way the diner scene unfolds by looking at the personal context of the relationship between the characters. I'm interpreting it in light of the fact that the film was made in a particular cinematic/social culture. This culture constantly reaffirms the idea that depression is somehow linked with a certain 'messy' kind of female sexiness and in doing so makes depressed women into fantasy objects. When I watched it I got pinged by my memories of seeing so many other depressed women dressed up like Tiffany and made to speak lines about their sex lives by male film creators. Add into that the fact that we live in a world full of sexism and I get suspicious about why Tiffany is presented like this (although obvs we have to take the book's source material into account too). Your interpretation is super interesting and different frames make interpretation really varied - I'm just looking at this film through a different kind of lens.