There's this girl I'm interested in who used to be one of my best friends. During the duration we were friends, we spent a lot of time talking and I think she may have been flirting with me. Only problem is that the reason we were friends was because she wanted to get me to date a friend of hers. After months of talking and hanging out I ended up falling for her rather than her friend, and that created an awkward tension. Due to the tension we stopped talking for a bit, and in the end our relationship was completely severed (her friend might have said something now that I think about it).

It's been about a year now, and her birthday is coming up. I want to give her a present and ask her out...Only problem is that she isn't the kind of person that likes that kind of thing. She likes to take it slow, and I'm afraid spontaneously asking her out would just screw things up more.

I can't exactly "man" up as we're both shy people. Even if she did want to go out with me, she'd be too embarrassed to properly respond unless she was comfortable around me. What is there to do?