Cool, I learned something today! Thanks :)

Interesting. So when I'm connecting to peers for downloading, these connections can be initiated in both ways? And since I'm not currently port-forwarding, this means I can only actively find peers, rather than passively accepting incoming connections?

I see, thanks for clarifying! Even without port-forwarding, I'm able to make some connections. Is there just a more limited set of destination IPs I'm able to connect to? What dictates whether or not I'm able to connect?

Huh, I've been using a VPN for torrent without setting up any kind of port forwarding! Can someone explain why you might want to do this?