Does staying friends with him make him realize he may still be interested/care about you?

Don't let him have it both ways. If he moves on, then so should you.

Staying friends can make you see a lot of the reasons you loved someone in the first place, and you'll see them all over again. That can get some ideas going in the dudes mind, but dudes have to be really really careful once they're put in the friend zone, because girls get rid of guy friends who try to do them.

If he gets overwhelmed and wants you so bad he doesn't care if you hate him forever, he'll make a move again.

If he's really cautious or considerate, he won't bother you about it and you'll have to pretty much make the first move from here on out or it's just friends forever.

Some guys might want to try to stay friends just so a relationship doesn't mess up an awesome friendship, but it's really rare, because we like getting laid more than we like most anything else.

As far as a guy telling you 'lets just be friends' that's usually a nice guy break up line, he doesn't want to hurt your feelings and won't tell you to just go away. It isn't always though, every now and then the situation is just right to be friends and nothing more with a great girl whom you would otherwise bang endlessly in a different situation.

I met an awesome girl like this at work who was in the process of breaking up with her highschool sweetheart who she had carried with her to college. She was really impressed with me and wanted to take me to shows and whatnot but I ended up not taking her out because a bunch of other girls wanted to do stuff with me and I had just met this girl. She is a straight awesome girl, really nice, really hot, really cool, just great, but we never ended up getting together and actually she got back together with her sweetheart (she forgave him for cheating on her after a few weeks). I met them both at a local band show and talked to her special man friend. Dude was cool as hell too, and they had been together for like 5 years and he was her only guy ever etc. So now I'm in the situation where I don't want to break that up just to work a great girl, it's better if I just be friends with both of them and have 2 awesome friends with an amazing relationship (which I can always admire but will never envy).

It's weird but it happens

In my past experiences the girls that asked me to stay their friend. I never stayed with them. It was just to awkward and strange to hang out together. But that's just me.

i think the whole "friends" thing can work both ways. sometimes people use it to soften the blow of a break up and it doesn't matter if they're girls or guys :-). what do YOU want out of the situation? do YOU want to be more than friends? I think the best way to deal with something like this is to stop second guessing and just ask him point-blank!

*good luck!*