This is my take on "Catie".
Before "Catie" even started, I and others discussed various matters in depth.
We were unanimous in agreement that fucking with Chris and being deliberately malicious (like Bluespike did, for instance) shouldn't be done for multiple reasons. We were then left with the question of, what is there left to do that hasn't been done before with Chris? We came up with the following:
There were two primary purposes behind "Catie".
One was to obtain information as benignly and as subtlety as possible, to try to shed some light on unanswered questions about the Chandlers and their past, and to keep updated on their current situation.
The second was sort of an social experiment, and open ended question=
What if Chris met a attractive young woman who actually liked him, was accepting of him, and was highly tolerant of Chris's eccentricities? In other words, what if the best case scenario in Chris's sweetheart search actually happened to him?
That was what was simulated with "Catie" and a very good job was done of it. Chris completely believed that "Catie" was real for the entire duration of the interaction, and we have every reason to believe that Chris acted as he would have had "Catie" been an angel from heaven, and Chris still ended up screwing it up through his awful character and personality. We gave Chris a (nearly) perfect chance to have a sweetheart, and he still screwed it up.
This demonstrates a lot, but I'll list two main insights here:
The impediment in Chris's sweetheart search is himself. Unless he changes, (highly unlikely) he will never have a sweetheart, or any IRL friends.
Even without any negative stimuli or provocation, Chris is still an asshole to friendly people.
You can judge us for doing an experiment like this, but we saw a priceless opportunity, and we were curious. We ended up learning a lot. Nobody got hurt, and nothing was harmed, except perhaps for Chris's feelings at the end. I would like to point out that "Catie" tried to let go of Chris gently, and that as much of a JERK as Chris was to "Catie", he had earned being dumped ten times over. Also, if Chris had never met "Catie" he would have been complaining about how lonely he was for that time.
"Catie" never materially harmed Chris, was never mean to Chris, and was always reasonable with Chris. Several weeks ago, I was having a private conversation with an involved person, and they said to me "You know, people on the forums think that Catie is evil and is behind all the stupid shit that Chris's done recently, but the truth is that Chris has done a much better job of trolling himself this year than Catie ever has."
In conclusion, obviously, "trolling" Chris, studying him, or whatever the hell you want to call it, is reaching a point of diminishing returns. However, I and others decided to have one last go at it, and it went well. We gained some new insights, and got some new content. I intend to share what I can with the forums when I can, there's a lot of stuff and it's going to take a while to sort through.
If you have any questions, please ask. I will answer what I can at this time.