Help with a shy guy! Will choose best answer.?

All right, to avoid rambling, I will bullet this out.

-Met guy I like (let's call him Joe) about a year and 3 months ago, while I was dating my Ex.

-Joe is in Ex's group of friends, with whom I have become quite close. Joe and Ex, however are not very close basically because Ex is a stupid a$$ and Joe is a decent person. I broke up with Ex in November and have continued to become better and better friends with the group, despite Ex pursuing different friends.

-The one girl in the group (we'll call her Ann) will have all of us over about every 3-5 weeks. At the most recent gathering, I was giving everybody back rubs (not sexual or anything, I just enjoy making my friends feel better) and Ann asked to be first, so when I was done with hers I asked who would like to be next and Joe immediately raised his hand, but I picked the other girl (ladies first, haha). Anyhow, when I got to Joe's turn, I found out he is EXTREMELY ticklish on his ribs, so I obv went ahead and tickled him for a while. Usually he won't let anybody tickle him EVER, but he seemed like he was enjoying it. When I was done with his back rub and it was somebody else's turn I asked him to get up and he wouldn't, he just laid there, smiled at me and refused to get up.

-Later that evening, all of us were singing songs together and Joe kept making eye contact, sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes closer to twenty seconds and more frequently during the 'love' songs.

- Joe and I are both into the band Rise Against, and a few weeks ago, he quoted one of their songs as his Facebook status ("Nothing I can do will make you hear", the last line of the last chorus, being the quote). The next day, I quoted a different but related song and he 'Facebook sang' it with me. That evening, I quoted a line of the chorus of the first song (The Nothing I can do . . . song) and he commented back "Nothing I can do will make you hear", which confused me because if he had wanted to Facebook sing it, he would've started the second verse, not the end of the song.

- He usually isn't the type to RSVP first to any get together, so it threw me off-guard when he did for my birthday party and also showed up first.

- His best friend figured out I like him and although I made him swear not to tell, I can't helpmbut wonder if he would tell him anyways.

In any case, here are my problems:

- Is there a chance he likes me, or at least recognizes that I like him?

- We usually only see each other at the parties, but we can talk on FB. The problem is, I can talk to him just fine IRL, but over Facebook all I can come up with is "HURRR DERP HURDURR HERP DEERP" lol. Any suggestions on things to say? Or at least on how to avoid sounding like an idiot?

- I can also be lost for interesting conversation even in person. Sometimes I can get him into a good debate (I'm conservative Constitutionalist and he's some sort of liberal, so it makes for an interesting debate) but other times I'm just thinking 'DERP'. Help with that as well, please?

He is a really, really great guy and I am very interested in him, I just need a little help to get to talking more often.

Thank you in advance for your he, and SO MUCH for actually reading all of this.