thanks for bringing this thread up :D
1. I'd say I went through multiple periods of questioning, but I never seriously considered to have another sexuality. Like, it always felt wrong. But I thought about heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, gay (yeah, I guess this was an early signs of not-being-cis)
(after I discovered that I'm able to feel strong sensual attraction i started to rethink if there would be another label to suit me and for a time I thought about pansensual which changed more into bisensual by now but actually I'm fine with not labelling it or just labelling it as queer)
cn aro-erasure
2. yeah. Totally. I used to think I discovered being asexual first but actually this only happened bc I thought about being aromantic (even if I didn't know so back then). like, I didn't google "why don't I feel sexual attraction", I did google "why can't I fall in love". I think it shows a lot how much aromanticism and asexuality are unnecessary connected and how much we have to work on to make clear they are separate that I discovered the term asexual before the term aromantic even if I was searching about FALLING IN LOVE. actually, it sucks!
for me it worked since I am both, aro and ace, but sometimes I ask myself how long it would have taken me to discover what aromanticism is when I was allosexual.
as it's a few years since I googled that stuff it may be that it changed a bit and I REALLY HOPE it did and that persons who google "can't fall in love" find out about aromanticism before they find out about asexuality.
3.
when I discovered I am aroace I used to see it as one, but this changed a lot. also, I always felt like my asexuality would be connected to my aromanticism while I never felt my aromanticism would be connected to my asexuality. weird
Now I say: My romantic and my sexual attraction are separate. Totally.