This might be long and all over the place (I have quite a few problems right now, but this is on my mind the most). I recently started post-secondary education, and I found out someone I once knew is at the same school. Before she moved away, this girl and I were friends in high school. After she left, I guess I really started missing her, and feelings that I had been too scared to reveal grew. We have since reunited at university, and I think we were both glad to see each other again. However, after a couple of weeks, she seemed to notice that I had feelings for her. Because I'm shy, I hadn't intended on revealing them to her (not wanting to damage the friendship), but I was honest about everything when she asked. She then said that was glad I told the truth, and that I was fine being friends. She continued by giving me many reasons she doesn't want a relationship with anybody. The reasons she gave were understandable (for example, she is busy dealing with a challenging program), but they didn't fully convince me that her feelings would be like that forever. Despite this, I simply told her I was fine with just being friends.
Now I'm facing a problem. What I want most is to be as close friends as possible, even if it means staying platonic. However, because our weekly schedules are different, I find it hard to see much of her or talk, and hang out like we did before. And to make things worse, a very large part of me still wants to be able to find a way to convince her to enter a relationship (even though it would be further down the line), especially since the "rejection" she gave me did not feel as if it were set in stone. I'm worried that I'm getting obsessed; having this girl in my life means so much to me, but I'm thinking about this problem a lot more than I should.
I had tried convincing her to get together and do stuff (as friends), but for a while she avoided me because she sensed my feelings - this was before she decided to ask me about them. Now I'm worried about making too much contact when I think about texting her. At the same time, I don't want to stop contacting her for long periods. Not only does this just make me think more about her, but she told me herself that she didn't want me to just disappear when she said she didn't want a relationship.
What should I do? I want to talk with her about this, but aside from the fact that I feel uneasy about doing so, she seemed to be a bit uncomfortable when we were talking before.

James, 20
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Trying to move from friends to dating, can ruin a lot of relationships, to be honest it is hard to stay friends at this point. You have to respect her feelings and just ask to do things when you can. Stop being pushy or you will just chase her away

I appreciate your answer, but I guess I didn't make everything clear. I'm not a pushy guy at all, and part of what I want is to just be able to find a way to address my feelings and discuss hers with trying to force her into anything, or jeopardizing the friendship. The things I want to address are as follows:
1. How we can make find more time to hang out and do stuff as friends - this will be a bit easier, because I know her well enough to know that she won't be driven away by me asking this. I still need help to keep it from being too awkward though...
2. How we can discuss relationships - this is where there will be trouble. Even after that very uncomfortable talk, she was quite adamant that we should still be friends. I just don't want to her to become uneasy if I discuss feelings; When we talked, my feelings for her were mentioned (not in detail, just the fact that I had a bit of an attraction), but for all the other reasons she gave, she didn't say what she felt about me. And the reasons she gave me are things that could change over time (being stressed by school, being shy, etc.). I feel I need to discuss these things with her to be certain about things, and I am aware that I shouldn't rush things. In fact, part the issue is that I wasn't about to ask her out (despite my feelings); I had been keeping to myself, waiting to see if there was an opportunity to ask if the friendship could become something more. I'm not very good at taking things fast myself...

1. She is holding all the cards. She has a busy schedule. She clearly is putting school first. All you can do is let her know that you are happy to spend time with her whenever she wants, and to let you know. I wouldn't text her, but that's just my old fashioned dislike of being hounded by that new concept. It reminds me of people who called my answering machine more than once (did you get my message? Why haven't you called back?).

2. I think you got it all out, personally. There's nothing more to say. You like her more than a little, while she has reasons for not getting involved with anyone at this time. Again, she is holding all the cards, and you just wait. Very, very patiently.