Random morning thought. I've talked about all the various kinds of attraction, I've talked about alterous attraction, and I've talked about modular personality traits. What if all the types of attraction aren't as separate as we think? Maybe the threads of attraction are made up of separate strands of more basic underlying emotional responses, and some combinations of those strands can have similar but distinctive properties, which we give different names to. Given this concept, alterous attraction might not be two threads that have become entangled, but a single thread with a combination of strands resembling both the other more common threads. I'm thinking these odd thread configurations are my default instead of the stereotypical threads of attraction. Damn, I'm going to have to contemplate this more later. Anyway, that's my rambling for the morning.
First follow-up comment
Thought about this a bit while riding the long chair lifts at the ski hill. I'm not entirely happy with this theory. I'm actually not convinced it's all that different from my previous interpretation. It's still interesting though, and will probably be incorporated in some form into a future theory.
Second follow-up comment
I do like the idea that every thread of attraction is made up of individual strands representing different emotional responses. Some strands may be found in multiple threads. And I'm thinking alterous attraction is like you took two threads, unwound them into their constituent strands, then wound those strands together. So it's not as easy to untangle as if it was simply two threads wrapped around each other. More thoughts on that later.