zarkon wrote : Ok. ExLibris, I played it many times over, focusing on what she says in every occasion. I think I have a more complete profile of her now, and it will certainly surprise you, the way it surprised me. Here it is:
Christine is almost totally inexperienced in matters of relationships and sex. Quite the opposite of self confident. It sounds too extreme, but if you see her steps one after another you may agree. It all fits: she is a grown woman with the behaviour of a teenager! I said she is insecure: that's an understatement. In fact she is absolutely terrified. I think she has been hurt more than once, the expression "serial victim" I think fits her perfectly. She is something like an overgrown schoolgirl! I have a complete profile of her, read it and I'm open for discussion. Her main points of her are: trust issues, shyness and immaturity. I'll present those with phrases she uses.
That explains her irrational leaps from trust issues to the threesome and fouresome: she is simply playing! Trying to find someone to complete her emotionally, and fill in for the time she has lost.
I have more examples, but what I think is that in the end everybody sees what he wants to see. I say that because I'm sure that you can find other examples that lead to a different conclusion. Maybe I just want her to be that way.What matters here is that tlaero and phreaky created a character so real that we started a debated over her. Anyway, if you want to say anything on this matter, I'm open to discuss it.
Generally I agree with you, especially "in the end everybody sees what he wants to see".
Trust - a woman who asks a friend to try and seduce her boyfriend as a test (when they've been going out less than 48 hours!) has major league trust issues. No argument there.
Shyness - I think what you're describing is more a fear of intimacy than shyness per se. It's hard to think of a woman who deep throats a banana in a crowded bar while her date loudly cheers her on as shy. Attention seeking does tend to go along with insecurity though.
Lack of experience - I'd agree that she's less experienced than she might appear at first glance. After all Adrian never sees her with anyone else in all the time he watches her, and Patty & Tyrone never hear her.
However, there is a line that makes me think that Vanessa wasn't her first time with a woman:
"But I have no emotional attachment to other women. Sleeping with them is like masturbating to porn."
The fact that she sets up the scene with Sandy (because it's way too much of a coincidence that Sandy turns up at that hotel at that exact moment) makes me suspect that they've been bed buddies in the past, although there are a lot of other possible explanations.
I think one of Christine's main characteristics is her emotional remoteness, which is consistent with some emotional trauma in her past. She doesn't trust, and she doesn't let herself have feelings for anyone else. As I mentioned, when she uses the word love it's to describe someone else's feelings. Even with Adrian I think the most she'll say is that she's 'attached' to him, which is a pretty neutral term.
But ultimately it's all in the eye of the beholder, as Tlaero has avoided providing any evidence that would categorically define Christine one way or another.
However, I would agree with Ripe that Adrian is the forgotten man in all of this.
I'm not sure I'd classify him as an incipient serial killer/rapist since he didn't deliberately set out to watch Christine undressing, and he doesn't try to spy on anyone else. But he's introverted, inexperienced and lacking in confidence and self-esteem.
His relationship with Christine has a lot of the signs of infatuation, especially the way he seems to idealise Christine (he refers to her as an angel and a goddess, for example) even though she's all too human with human problems. If the relationship goes wrong (and given Christine's likely emotional problems that's quite possible) he doesn't really have the tools to deal with it properly. He may also come to resent Christine's dominant position in the relationship, which could cause problems down the line as well.