First break up--remain friends? how to cope?

I broke up with my boyfriend of 6 months a few days ago. We're both in college, and we started dating at the beginning of the first semester. We're very close friends, and I would consider him to be my best friend, and he feels the same. We both realize that we're better as friends than as boyfriend/girlfriend. We haven't said, ';I love you to each other'; in our relationship, and with Valentine's approaching, I couldn't help but ask myself how I truly feel about him. He asked me, ';Can we talk?'; one night, and I knew where that was going. He told me that he knew our relationship wasn't going to be his last relationship (he didn't cheat--i know that for sure), and honestly, I have to respect him for being upfront about it. I feel the exact same way. I can't see him as my future fiancee, husband, father of my children. And isn't the ultimate goal of a relationship unconditional future happiness? I am very aware of myself and I have much of my future planned out, while he is not that type of person. I wouldn't want to restrict him from exploring the person that he wants to become, and to be honest, I don't think that I'm interested in having any more relationships in college. I want to really take advantage of every opportunity and focus on myself. He said that he couldn't see our plans fitting together, especially for the summer since we live 6 hours away from each other when we're not at college. I'm trying to remain optimistic and see the good in everything, and I can't imagine losing him as a friend. He expressed a lot of interest in staying friends, and I hope that it's possible. Do you have any advice/stories to share that would make me feel better about all of this?First break up--remain friends? how to cope?
Distance yourselves for a while and then maybe you can become best friends in the future. That's what I had to do. The only difference is that this guy and I had an intimate relationship. Took about a year and it went in a full circle back into a best friend relationship.