i think magnets are more interesting when you think of them laterally. the poles don't just act face-to-face, but actually interact quite well side-by-side, too. if their poles point the same direction, they repel, and opposite directions attract. if you kept them aligned and lined up, like discs sandwiched in glass, you could orbit either one around the pole-axis of the other, and the attraction/repulsion works all the way around. in this 2-dimensional plane, they act more like +/- monopoles.