Should I recreate a friendship with this person?

I had a friend about a year and a half ago. We had been friends for a good ten years before that, but one day he just didn’t show up when we were supposed to get together. Then it happened again, and again. He came up with weird excuses, such as sudden pneumonia, and I decided to end the friendship by not picking up the phone when he called, and not responding to texts. I haven’t seen him since.

After stopping the friendship my brother, who had been holding a grudge against this friend for a long time, told me a few things about him. Apparently this friend had and has random sex with a lot of girls, probably smoked pot for a long time even though he told me he didn’t, and he lies constantly and tells fake stories. Even though those stories are really entertaining to listen to, the lies disturb me.

My former friend has since dropped out of an automotive college. That’s all I know about him since we’re still friends on Facebook. I feel like this friend had been keeping me away from his darker world and I feel like that was good of him. We both cared a lot about each other, and he protected me from a lot of bad stuff. Yet at the same time, I didn’t want to be friends with this type of person. Now, I regret it.

Recently, he poked me on Facebook and I am wondering if I should poke back. I feel bad just leaving him behind like that. You have to understand. I was four when I met this guy. We had been friends for over a decade, and I grew up with him. We were brothers. Now, a lot has changed since then. The biggest of these things being that I’ve come out as gay, which is something that he used to make fun of constantly. I don’t want to get back together with him to form a relationship in this regard. I just want to be friends, but I’m afraid that he’ll think that I would be trying to make a move on him. I have never felt anything for this guy though. I am only his friend.

So what do you think? Should I get back together with him, or could it all just fall apart?