My boyfriend broke up with me yesterday and decided that it's best to just be friends. We've been dating for 7 months. He mentioned that I'm a person with no bad intentions, and that he loves me very much and really cares about me. But he told me that the reasons why he is deciding to stay as friends is because he is doing it for me, he doesn't want me to get hurt to the point where he's hurting himself as well. He told me that he wants me to meet other people, and evaluate myself a bit more. Adding to that it was the first time that I ever heard him say "I love you very much and I care about you. You know I don't say this to you but I do mean it. You know I'm doing this for your own good." After the whole talk we had, he texted me and reassuring if I ate the typical conversation we would have as if we were dating and we said our goodnights. The next morning, he sent me a good morning text , which I wasn't expecting because we are supposed treat each other as friends. Throughout the day, he would text me and started to call me more than usual but he keeps using my nickname that he made when we were dating. All of these actions, just confuses me because I'm not the one who is initiating the conversation, he's the one that initiates it and check up on me.
What does he really want to tell me? Is it a possibility he made a mistake?
