Just who the hell is Connie?!?

From the short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", by Joyce Carol Oates. I'm desperately trying to figure out just who the hell Connie really is. What I need help on, is, understanding who she is in a deeper sense. I'm mainly looking for information that's non-superficial. Any type of feasible analysis is welcome and others that'll aid me as well, thanks.

On the surface, she is a teenage girl who seems to care only about superficial things. She is actually someone who is afraid, with many doubts ( ex. her laugh is quick and nervous, she seems insincere). She tries to cover it up by being a smart-aleck and a flirt. She is trying to find a place in the world because she always feels as thought she doesn't belong -- hence the boys, the artifice, her distance from her family. She chooses to go with Arnold Friend even though she is frightened of what might happen, because she reasons out that nobody would miss her anyway, because no one has ever shown that they needed her. Then again, she might have convinced herself that it is only a surreal dream, and it wouldn't do any harm if she went along. See Joyce Carol Oates's story "Three Summers". The main character, Sissy, is the woman Connie might have become.

She's a strange character, always feeding on others' miseries and manipulating them. Not necessarily to benefit herself, but having others in pain or in a worse situation than hers and to know she's caused it, gives her a sense of fulfillment.

omg shes lik the geeky wannabe wit the glasses
<3