I have had different experiences with this. My first serious relationship wasn't until I was in college. It lasted a little over a year, and he was very jealous, controlling, and borderline obsessed. I couldn't take it anymore & ended it. It was a painful breakup & he begged me to stay friends. I said ok, because I thought it would be nice if we could at least be friends without all of the jealousy, etc. Unfortunately, his plan was to try & convince me to get back together with him every chance he got. He would call me, we would have a good talk, and at the end he would say 'see, we are good together, give me another chance.' That does not work. It was irritating & eventually, when he realized he had no chance, he stopped talking to me.

I had a less serious guy I dated a couple of years later. I was still in college, we were friends first & then dated for about a month-there was really nothing there & it was an easy break up. It was easy for us to remain friends, even though we didn't really hang out after I graduated from college (he lived in the same town as my school). Even now, if I run into him with my current SO, he will come up to me, give me a hug, shake my man's hand, and there's nothing akward about it. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, what are your intentions? If you really can't just be friends, and you only want to be friends because you think you'll have a chance at getting back with your SO, then it won't work. You broke up for a reason-it didn't work the first time. If you want to remain friends because it didn't work out, and you like eachother better as just friends, then it could possibly work.