My ex keeps contacting though wants to still date other people?

So i am gay and I met this guy last year. We are both in our thirties but he was still dealing with coming out of the closet. He wasn't out to anyone and I knew this may be a problem but still trudged ahead because I had such strong feelings for him. Unfortunately, he was also in the military and had to go out of out-of-state for like 4 months. Before he left, he expressed his love for me. I also felt strongly for him. I had felt he did this to cement the relationship so when he comes back, we will be together. While he was away we talked constantly and sent each other letters and such. I noticed before he came back he was quite distant. Our first physical meeting was awkward and i expressed my feelings that something was wrong. Now this is someone who doesn't express negative feelings very well but he expressed that while he was away, he began to start to dislike himself for being gay and just simply didn't know he felt. Now, he also said that his feelings for me in the beginning were strong but didn't feel strongly about me now. He also said sorry for leading me on. I took this as breaking up with me so I said that we should just be friends but that i needed some space for some time. From that point on, we talked occassionally, mainly on holidays but didn't physically see each other for many months. I was very depressed about the breakup along with other things in my life and had personally decided that it may be a good time to move away from the city back home. I still had some of his things and many months later, we met up so i could pass some of his things to him. I told him about my desire to move and mentioned that maybe we should meet one day but basically said that as a nice gesture since i said it before and he never attempted to make plans. After this meeting, he started to contact me constantly to hang out. I wasn't as receptive but eventually decided to meet him when i got an email that he had come out to his entire family. We met on like a Monday which happened to be Valentines Day and he was very very happy about how things were going for him and he had many drinks. On the way out of the restaurant, he told me that he wanted to tell me that because he wasn't out to his family, it bothered him a lot and felt that it many ways, this is why our relationship went eventually sour. I didn't respond to his statement because i was concerned about where this was heading. We started to hang out again and he was so happy and enjoyable to be around and my feelings started to arise again. He then laid a plunker on me that he was going on a date with someone. He tried to talk about this date to me a few times until I met with him and told him that it was too painful to hear about dates and recommended I don't speak to him for a long time. He didn't want that and met with me to talk aabout things. he was so distant and of course I was very emotional and he said that he was hurt when I BROKE UP WITH HIM. I told him it was the other way around in my head but he basically wanted to still date me and according to him, I broke it off and he went through a lot of pain with this. I was so confused and hurt by the situation. I told him that if we talk, i just can't hear about new dates. I have tried to ignore him but it is very hard. He still contacts me all of the time and if i ignore him, he always tries to contact me in other ways. In our conversations, he is also a lot like he was in the past, caring and sweet and I can't get over him because I keep thinking there is hope. He has now started calling me at night once in awhile before i go to bed to say goodnight but he is still dating other people as far as I know. Why is he doing this if he wants to explore his new life dating?