Is it appropriate to ask a guy out via facebook?

[E]

For months my coworkers have been talking about how I need to meet this new employee at work. He works in the same department as ours, but it is a rather large department and he rotates to other facilities. My coworkers even took liberties of talking to his direct coworkers about a match up. They were for it as well, so my coworkers gave my number to give to the new guy. A couple months went by with no phone call, and then this guy then rotated back to working in our office again. Before he came back, I heard he sent one of his coworkers to "scope" me out. He worked in our office for about a month, however we had little reason to interact and barely ever saw each other. However the whole time it was a topic of discussion around the dept. Except no one felt they knew the other well enough to help make the connection happen. From what I've heard, he's kind of a shy guy, but very nice, quiet and might stay to himself at work. He also has a pretty demanding job, so I understand he's busy.

On the last day, I finally got the nerve to introduce myself and make small talk with him when we sat near each other for a meeting. I felt like we were both kind of nervous and we both were trying to play it cool that we didn't know each other (even though I've heard all about him the last month...and with all the talk I've heard he has had to of heard about me). We had a short little chat and I caught him looking at me a few times. Later that night, I got nosy and found him on facebook. I thought "what the hell?" and requested to be his friend. He finally responded almost a week later. It doesn't appear that he is on facebook much on his page, so maybe he didn't check it until then, but by that time I had my doubts. No messages have been exchanged.

So I guess my question is--- would it be appropriate to message him? I feel like its weird to not address this big elephant in the room. I also am interested and it seems like if I am waiting for him to initiate it might never happen. Would it be weird to message him and ask if he wants to meet up for a drink? Or am I blind and not reading that the silence is that he really is not interested?

Don't want to make a fool of myself. I fear that everyone at work will find out if it goes wrong. But also have been hearing about this so long that for nothing to happen makes it feel like a let down. Any thoughts?

[AuntKatie]

These days it seems to be appropriate, but better in real life.