Twitter Etiquette

So I’ve been chatting to a girl I met on twitter recently. I don’t remember how our paths crossed, perhaps around Christmas, but at some point we started following each other. We have quite a lot in common – we support the same football team, watch some of the same TV shows, have broadly similar political views, are both fans of the Muppets (an essential quality I look for in people), are both cat people. Oh, and we live in the same town.

Which leads me to my question. What is the etiquette for crossing over from the Twittersphere to the real world? How do I ask her out? I’m not asking literally how, even a useless coward like me can DM her and ask her out, but is it the done thing? If/when I do eventually send that “so, do you fancy meeting for a drink” message, I want to be sure it is the next logical step from someone she is friends (in the old-fashioned, actual sense of the word) with, rather than a message which  will trigger the online stalker freak alarm.

I guess the answer to this is “timing” – keep chatting, get to know each other, progress naturally. But I am the world’s worst at timing. I either wait too long until I am permanently parked in the Friend Zone and the moment has passed, or I don’t wait long enough and some across as desperate, needy and probably a potential serial killer.

My guess is this particular act of wooing will fall into the “wait too long” category but let’s see shall we? I may or may not report back with any developments depending whether there are any or not, and what those developments are.