Is there a proper way to go about asking this young man if he wants to continue our friendship?

When I was a freshman in college, I had something resembling a romantic relationship with a guy who turned out to be a jerk. During our time together, however, I became friends with a few of his friends and there is one friend of his in particular who I thought I was pretty close with. However, when this other guy and I ended our “thing” it was a bit too weird and convoluted to call a “relationship” his friend stopped speaking to me.

Now, I had thought that he and I had developed a friendship completely independent of the “thing” with this other boy. We would chat a bunch and text each other and have great conversations that did not involve the other boy.

I have recently rediscovered his profile on facebook. Since it has been a few years since this whole thing went down and since I no longer have any kind of interaction with the other boy, I was thinking of trying to get in touch with this guy again. The only way I have of getting inc contact with him is on facebook and I was thinking of sending him a message before sending him a friend request I have changed phones multiple times since we last spoke and I no longer have his number.

Can the collective offer any advice on how I should approach this?