Ex contacting me. Just friends or does he want more?
Since calling me in November and talking for over an hour. My ex hadn't contacted me until he texted to wish me a merry christmas. I soon after actually contacted him online. I intended to make it brief I had a question about something kinda stupid, nothing serious. He answered and asked me a few questions about life and I ended the conversation. He came back and said we should chat sometime soon. I told him he knew how to reach me. We continued talking and he eventually said he wants to hang out again soon. He even claimed he was going to come visit a friend at my school and wanted to see me then. (Let me point out though- this friend has been home for break just like he is and is 5 mins from him for the past 3 weeks and they did not see each other once). We even discussed applying for jobs in the same area down the road.
Since the 2 hr conversation. He has contacted me every three days just about for the past 3 weeks.Always online. Usually it's just to chat. Once it was to give me to respond to my away message, to wish me a happy new year, to ask about my trip, to discuss a movie I suggested watching, etc. He is back at school and even got on from a friends apartment and talked to me online while hanging out with a friend. I am curious to see how this keeps up. I always end the conversation and I don't always respond when he contacts me.
I don't want to ask him what his intentions are for fear of making a bigger deal out of this contact than it is. I am just unsure if this is he is over me and just wants to be friends (but even then I wonder if we keep this up and even start hanging out again those feelings or attraction could return), is he just lonely and is using me, does he want to be more than friends again.
A little background info: We dated a year, both currently at different graduate schools. Any way you slice it (home to school, school to school, home to home) about 2 hrs apart. He broke up with me because the relationship was getting really serious and he did not think he was ready for that. He said he was too young to settle down. He was worried about long distance and the stress of grad school breaking us up in a really ugly way. (not that our breakup wasn't ugly) So he was all around scared and just ended it. We spent time arguing of how to approach this moving apart and becoming long distance. It was ugly at first we did no contact a month. he contacted me once then he started dating this new girl for 3 months and we did zero contact for 4 months. It's been almost a year since the break up.
What do you think his intentions are? Guys especially how should I interpret his behavior and how should I respond?