Recognize your strengths - Ask your counsellor Q&A column

[The following column answered by me appeared in the Deccan Herald Education page on July 30, 2015)

Dear Madam,
I am a final year engineering student (ECE) in Hubli, Karnataka. During my childhood I wanted to become a scientist and join NASA as I was interested in space. But after completing my second year PU, I don't know what has happened to my goal and my ambitions! 

From being a good student I have become   become average and study  only to pass examinations. I sometimes try to motivate myself to study but it does not last for very long.  Also, I am very addicted to technology and I am unable to come out of it. My campus placements are going to happen next week and I wanted to get placed, but I am not able to study. Please help me.

Mayur M Naravani
Dear Mayur

By the time you get a response to your letter your campus placements may already be over. However, no matter what the outcome of that, I think it is important for you to get the help of a counsellor to help you regain your motivation, uncover your hidden potential and add meaning to your life. 

Obviously your addiction to technology, while it is fulfilling a need for you, it is also coming in the way of your attaining your potential. Any kind of addiction is bad because it makes you dependent on an external factor for your own existence. NIMHANS, in Bangalore, has expert help available to help people deal with technology addiction, should you choose to take that help. 

It is great that you are able to recognize that you have greater potential and that something is blocking you in achieving it. Recognition is the first step. Now get the help you need to help you identify what is blocking you, and how to go full-steam ahead and achieve whatever it is you choose to.

Dear Madam,

I have a Diploma in Electrical and Electronics with 74.67% from Hubli, Karnataka. Due to lots of problems at home I dropped my PU course and completed diploma in E&E. As my family cannot afford engineering financially, I have to begin working. 

Please suggest how I can start to look for jobs and build my career and work passionately. I plan to join B.Com as a external student with a recognized university (Karnataka University Dharwad). Please guide me.
A Student
Dear student

Your question is really meant for a career counsellor to guide you on how to go about deciding on your next step, and maybe possibilities of funding your education through loans and/or scholarships. I really have no expertise in helping you with that. However, I would like to say that even if you don’t have the formal qualifications, with the right attitude and motivation you can learn and progress as you wish. Sometimes qualifications only open a few doors. 

Eventually making a success of those openings is an entirely different story and depends on the person’s soft skills more than anything else, like the ability to communicate, the ability to take risks, the ability to solve problems and think creatively, the ability to work in a team and leadership skills, among other things. So get started, give it your best shot, and keep climbing from step to step – but also remember to look back and take stock of where you started from and how far you have come.

All the best
Dear Madam,

I have completed my 2nd PUC Science and I am very poor in Maths. While I am interested in taking up 5 year law course, my father however wants me to do engineering. I don’t want to regret  taking up engineering even after knowing that it is not suitable for me. I’m confused. Please help me by telling how I can convince my father. Also tell me what the scope for law is.

Shivakumar
Dear Shivakumar

I think you and your father need to have an honest open communication about what you should do. You need to understand why your father wants you to do engineering. I am sure he wants the best for you, and thinks that engineering is the only route to achieve that. You should also be clear and communicate to him about why you want to do law, why you think it is the right choice for you, and why you think engineering is not for you.

I totally agree with you that you should not enter a field that you do not have any interest in.  However, it is in your interest to carry your family along with you in your decision. To do that you may need to do some introspection and self-analysis to figure out why you feel your choice is the right one for you. Remember that your father eventually will want the same end result that you want – for you to be happy and successful at whatever you do. You are not two opposing forces, and you don’t need to view the situation as such. Hope this helps and all the best.

Dear Madam,

I am currently confused about what career options to take. I have completed my B.Com from RC university Belagavi, Karnataka. I'm interested in banking sector and also in the defence sector. I'm writing the relevent exams for it as well. But I also want pursue MBA to complete my post graduation. But I have a third semester backlog of business statistics in B.Com so all my future plans have been kept on hold. Unofficially I have completed B.Com but due to the third semester backlog I am not able to apply for jobs.

I have lost my patience and confidence. In my home nobody is ready to guide me or help me in this regard. I want to have a career- which I like and enjoy and moreover earn respect from my friends, colleagues and family. But financially we are not so well off. This is the root cause of the problem. I have been waiting for a long time to tell you all this and seek your advice and solution to my set of academic problems.
Nikhil More
Dear Nikhil

Liking the career you have chosen, enjoying it and earning respect from your friends is all in your control as it is largely driven by your own thoughts and feelings about yourself and your situation. You can choose to view the same job as boring and mundane and do it in a routine mechanical fashion, or you can choose to be thankful for it and give it your best shot, all the time looking to think out of the box, solve problems, and give it your 100%. 

If you respect yourself your friends will have no choice but to respect you. What the world says about you is a reflection of what you feel about yourself. If you respect yourself, the way you interact and respond to situations will force others to respect you as well. Getting a job per se is not what gets you respect. It is what you bring to the job, or what you give to it, that ultimately earns you lasting respect.

Good luck!

Recognise your strengths - Ask your counsellor Q& A column

[The following column written by me appeared in the Deccan Herald Education Supplement on July 8, 2015]

Dear Madam,
I am a I PUC graduate with an overall percentage of 98.33%. My aim is to get into one of the IITs. But the problem with me is that I have a lot of negative points. I am a very bad time manager, lazy and unsystematic. I am also a procrastinator. I don’t study regularly and my work piles up at the end of the week. When the exams approach, I start studying late nights, trying to finish my portion at the last moment. 

For the I PU exam also, I skipped many topics as there wasn’t enough time. I scored well only because of sheer luck. But I believe I am capable and have immense potential. At present, I am attending classes in a coaching institute. In the first week I was full of energy and enthusiasm. But as the weeks passed, I have become casual, and I fear that because of this habit, I will not be able to perform up to my potential. 

So at the end, I feel bad that I have wasted precious time. To lift my spirits, I have read motivational books, but they don’t seem to work. Please help me in performing well and deleting my negative points.

SP

Dear SP

You are not the only person in the world who has negative points. Each person has negative points and in that you are not unique. However, each person also has positive points, along with the negative, and it is important that we recognize and acknowledge our positive points because that is what makes us feel stronger and better about ourselves and gives us the energy required to achieve our goals. 

Unfortunately most of us are only too quick to recognize our weaknesses and make the fatal mistake of thinking we don’t have any strengths. So I am not too concerned about the fact that you have weaknesses. I would be more concerned about the fact that you are not recognizing your strengths. You are attributing your successes to sheer luck, discounting any role that you and your strengths may have played in achieving them. 
I would urge you to stop here and take some time to take stock of your strengths. And don’t stop at discovering and uncovering only one or two. Try and dig out at least ten because I am sure you will have at least ten, provided you allow yourself to look for them.
If you can find more than ten, then even better. You don’t need to delete all your negative points. You need to know them, and then decide on which ones you want to modify and how you want to modify them. And as you start recognizing your positive points, the burden of the negative points will automatically come down. If with all your negative points that you mention you are able to get a score of 98.33%, you are obviously not giving enough recognition to your positive points and strengths. I am also not sure how much more will convince you that you are indeed achieving your potential!
Watch out from falling into the trap of constant dissatisfaction, no matter what the result. I hope you are not caught in the vicious cycle of never doing good enough! At some point of performance, you need to be able to take stock and enjoy your success and feel a sense of satisfaction at what you have achieved. All the best.

Dear Madam,
I am studying in II PUC. All my classmates in college think that I am completely unfashionable. All the other children laugh at me at school and say my clothes are completely unfashionable. I feel really stupid. I ask my parents to buy me better clothes but they say they don’t have enough money. What can I do?

Dear Anonymous,
I hear you say that you feel really stupid, and that is what concerns me. People around you will only reflect back to you what you are feeling about yourself. If you feel insecure, not smart and lacking confidence, then that is what people start thinking about you. And those are the cues that you pick up from your environment which further reinforces what you think about yourself.
Let me help you understand that a little better. You say you ‘feel stupid’. Because of that you may be thinking thoughts like ‘people don’t like me’, ‘I am not smart’, ‘others are smarter than me’, ‘what must the others be thinking of me?’ and so on. Because you are thinking like that you behave meekly, shyly and without confidence, feeling embarrassed about yourself and your clothes. 
Because you behave that way, your friends think you are not dressed fashionably. In reality, it is not your friends that are thinking you are not smart. It is you who is thinking you are not smart, and therefore behaving in a way that makes them say that. 
If you believe in yourself and your capabilities, and feel that you are smart, then your thoughts and behavior will reflect that ‘smartness’ and people will start thinking of you as ‘smart’. Your clothes don’t really have anything to do with smartness. 
You don’t need to be fashionable to be ‘smart’, and if you feel ‘smart’, think ‘smart’ and behave ‘smart’ then dressing fashionably is not that critical. Most people need to be ‘fashionable’ to project an external smartness which may not have anything to do with how smart they truly are. So the bottom line is to believe in yourself. 


Dear Madam
I am currently pursuing my second year engineering (mechanical) in Karnataka. I am from an orthodox family though my thinking is quite free. I have some good friends whom I talk to and spend a lot of time going out and having fun with. The problem is that, 
I do not have any female friends and I hesitate to talk to girls in general. I don't know how to approach a girl and start having a proper conversation. Sometimes I feel that I have to maintain a distance from girls, so that I don’t fall into some unwanted relationship.
M C
Dear M C
Sometimes our social conditioning and family background entrench in us a set of beliefs from which we operate, most of the time unconsciously. You mentioned that your family is conservative and so your hesitation to talking to members of the opposite sex may stem from messages you got around that from your family while growing up.  I urge you to take help in resolving this for yourself, and deep-seated beliefs take time to uncover and then shed off. 
You should either see a counsellor face to face to explore what your fears and anxieties around interacting with girls are based on and how to overcome them. Or you could call the free Parivarthan Counselling Helpline at 080 65333323  to talk to a counsellor who may be able to help you.

Pefect or Good Enough? Selfless or Selfish?

This article written by me first appeared at 

http://www.whiteswanfoundation.org/understanding-mental-health/experts-speak-details/perfect-or-good-enough-selfless-or-selfish/ 

I am mindful of the fact that after reading some of my columns you may start doubting your own capability as a parent; you may be so overcome with fear that you start believing that no matter what you do, you are going to have an adverse influence on your child. As though you are not worried enough already about your child’s future and your capability to deal with it, without my having to scare you and paint a picture of gloom and doom.

My intention in this column, dear readers, is not in any way to take you away from the joys of parenting, or create a doubt in your mind about your ability. Quite to the contrary, it is to make you mindful and aware of how simple things can go wrong, and how easy it is to fix those simple things, provided we are willing to fix them.

Parenting is a journey, like the rest of life. We can view it as a leisurely, luxurious trip, taking time to enjoy the scenery as we go along, and crossing roadblocks as they come along the course. Or, we can view it as a long, arduous trip that we just need to somehow complete, with each roadblock becoming a further nuisance on our course, delaying our arrival at the destination. The choice is ours.No matter what outlook we choose to have with respect to the journey, our views and expectations of ourselves hold a vital key. Are we constantly expecting ourselves to be perfect? In which case we will always fall short of our own expectations since there is no such thing as a perfect’ person. Or, are we willing to accept ourselves the way we are, with all our strengths, ability, intuition and gut feeling, yet with some weaknesses, doubts and anxieties. Are we willing to accept a less than perfect version of ourselves when it comes to our being a parent? Are we able to accept our own mistakes and shortcomings as a normal part of our journey of life and growth?

Nothing makes one feel as vulnerable as when one becomes a parent – “Now I need to be perfect,” “This is one area where I can’t afford to make any mistakes,” “I must never give anyone a chance to say that I did not do my best as a parent,” “Now everyone is going to judge me not on the basis of me, but on the basis of my child.” Yet, nothing also makes one feel as responsible as when one becomes a parent. I remember the immense sense of responsibility I felt when I looked at my new-born baby – this was a life that I was totally responsible for, and a life that was totally dependent on me for its very existence! And then I was overcome with fear – what if something went wrong? What if I am not able to cope? What if something happened to me? Would my child even remember me?

I think the one constant factor through the entire journey of parenting is being overcome with conflicting thoughts and emotions – hope and fear; love and anger; joy and sorrow; optimism and pessimism; trust and doubt; selflessness while secretly wanting some me time; fostering independence while longing for dependence; fulfilling your own dreams while wanting your children to live theirs; the elation of soaring high and the deflation of falling flat on your face – quite like a roller coaster ride.

So is parenting a selfless pursuit, or a selfish one? The first time that question was raised to me, of course I said it was absolutely selfless – how outrageous to think otherwise. But as I think about it now, I am not sure anymore. And maybe I don’t need to be – maybe it is a bit of both. And that is okay!

I believe that in being able to deal with this ambiguity, and the consequent shades of gray, lies a possible answer to enjoying the journey of parenting. You are neither perfect nor awful, and you don’t need to be; you don’t need to label yourself in the extremes. You are good enough and at any point of time, you need to believe that you are doing what you believe is right given your current understanding of the situation. When your understanding changes, or the situation changes, you may choose to do things differently, but as of now you are doing your best – and whether it is selfless or selfish is only a matter of inconsequential semantics. Believing in yourself and enjoying the journey is all that matters in the end. Really!

Strive for progress, not perfection - ask our counsellor Q&A column

[The following column answered by me appeared in the Deccan Herald education supplement of June 18, 2015]

Dear Madam,
I am currently pursuing engineering but I am not satisfied with it. It has always been my dream to write fantasy books for children but I am not sure if my parents would approve of it and hence, haven’t told them about it. It seems like every adult is counting on me to grow up and solve problems of the world when I am comfortable with imaginative writing. What do you 
suggest I do?
AJ 

Dear AJ,
If you are not sure about your parents approving your plan, then why are you presuming that they will not approve, and why don’t you go ahead and discuss it with them. Also, by conversation, you may be able to find a path that works for everyone. Lots of people will put the burden of their expectations on you. It is for you to accept the burden or not. You have to live up to your own expectations of yourself, and do what you feel will give you more satisfaction. It should preferably be a field that you have an interest in, that you are good at, and that society puts a value to, because eventually for you to feel worthy and make a living, what you do must be valued enough to allow you to make a living. When your parents influence you towards a particular career choice, they are only concerned about your being able to make a reasonable living and have a reasonable life. If you can convince them of being able to do that with your preferred choice, they will probably be more than okay with you following your dreams. It may be worthwhile for you to evaluate your dreams against these parameters and see how they hold up.

Dear Madam,
Girls in my college don’t find me attractive, and I think the reason is because I am fat. Since I was seven years old, I have been on the healthier side, which didn’t worry me until now. I am quite intelligent and have lots of friends but not the kind I would like. What should I do?
A student

Dear student,
I am assuming that you are a boy and are at the age when you are looking for romantic friendships. I may be completely wrong in these assumptions, but in the absence of any more information from you, I guess I will have to go with that. I am not sure what you are worried about. If you are intelligent and have friends, that is what is important. I don’t think you would want someone to like you just because of your physical looks. I am sure you would rather the girls liked you for your company, intelligence, confidence, sense of humor, creativity, and other such foundational qualities, than your physical appearance which is quite transitory. Chubbiness does not define you as bad, just like skinniness does not define you as good. These are attributes that you can change, should you choose to. But my question to you is this, do you want to change just to become more attractive to some girl, or do you believe in yourself, and your worth, and accept the fact that a discerning enough girl, who can value you for the right reasons, just has not come along yet, but will eventually. Like yourself, and others will follow! Good luck.

Dear Madam,
I am currently pursuing my second year of engineering and I get hurt when I see people breeze through life while I slog away for minimum results. It takes a lot of time and work for me to reach average results. I feel bad for myself when I see people living a wonderful life, getting top academic marks, having perfect relationships, enjoying their lives. Could you tell me how to manage my life?
PM

Dear PM
No one’s internal struggles are visible to another. We go around feeling that we are the only one’s struggling while everyone has a perfect life. The reality is not so. Everyone has struggles, and each one’s struggles are unique. And even if they are not struggling with anything right now, it does not mean they never will. That is the cycle of life. There are ups, and there are downs, and they keep changing.
Having said that I would like to point you to the work of Carol Dweck. You may want to read up about it on the internet. Carol Dweck found that intelligence is not in-built and fixed. With effort, it can be acquired and increased. So all the hard-work that you put in is never wasted. It adds to you and your body of knowledge, skill and capability. Different people have different strengths and ability, and some people may be better than you at some things, but you may be better than others at other things. You can compare yourself to those who seem to be ahead and better than you and feel frustrated and jealous, or you can compare yourself to those who are less fortunate than you and feel a sense of gratitude. It’s your choice. While it is beneficial to look at those ahead to remember where you have to go and stay on track, it is also helpful not to lose sight of those behind you and feel grateful. All the best

Dear Madam,
I am currently studying biotechnology. My friend who is studying the same course with me seems to have lost his way. He keeps complaining about his lack of interest in the course and the regret of having taking up on his parents’ word. I have always been giving him advice but it seems like he does not take it into account. Even after telling him that interest can be fostered, he refuses to change his way of thinking. Kindly suggest on what I could do to help him out. I do not want to see him holding himself back anymore as this is our second year and I really want to score good grades with him. 
CK

Dear CK
Your concern for your friend’s success is very touching and I am glad you wrote in asking what you should do. I think the best advice you can give your friend is to ask him to see a counsellor to help him sort out his confusions in a safe space without the fear of judgment. Sometimes, we feel we know what is best for the other person, but in pushing them towards the path that we feel is best, we may not be allowing them to understand themselves and their situation. 

Maybe your friend has some fears, anxieties or apprehensions which he is unable to talk to you about, or even unable to understand for himself. If you have access to a counsellor in your college, that is great. If not recommend that he either sees a counsellor face-to-face or calls in to the Parivarthan Counselling Helpline at 080-65333323080-65333323, which is a free helpline for young adults to connect with a counsellor. All the best.

Are you passing on your anxieties and fears to your children?

[http://www.whiteswanfoundation.org/experts-speak-details/are-you-passing-on-your-anxieties-and-fears-to-your-children/

There are two types of anxieties and fears that I want to dissect and explore in this column. The first are those that we grow up with, and are not able to overcome in adulthood and parenthood. And the second are those around our children and their future.

For the first, I don’t really need to look very far. Let me begin with my own anxiety around dogs. I know exactly where it came from. My father was terrified of dogs. While he had his own justification for the fear, and could narrate countless incidents due to which he did not like dogs, I developed that fear almost by default, through a process of osmosis. I never really gave it much thought. For me, it seemed quite the natural way of being. The only time it bothered me was when I wanted to visit a friend who had a dog. But she would put the dog in another room when I visited and that would settle that! My fear was only a minor irritant, not a show stopper, so life went on fairly peacefully.

And then I became a parent. Did I want to pass on my fear of dogs to my daughter? No, not really. So every time we visited someone who had a dog, I would put on a brave front and wear a straight face while every muscle in my body was taut. I would tentatively encourage my daughter to pet the dog, while never mustering up the courage to do it myself. The fact that my husband did not have the same fear was helpful because he could bring about an air of genuineness to that interaction, while I could not. Finally, my daughter was at ease. Not only was she comfortable around dogs, she also loved them and wanted one of her own. In one stroke of bravado I agreed, thinking that that would settle the discussion, and we could move on without actually doing anything about it. But she persisted and three years later, after I had exhausted every excuse in the book, we were on our way to pick up Cinnamon, our now five-year-old Beagle. I silently cried on the way home that day, as I feared what the future had in store for me. Would I ever be at ease in my home again?

But that’s history. I am now a dog-lover who coos over every cute dog that comes my way, and every cute doggie picture that crosses my eyes. Would I have rather not had a dog! No way! I am rather proud of this transition of mine from dog-fearer to dog-lover; and of not passing on my dog-related anxieties to my daughter. However, it need not have ended this way. Had I not been aware of my own fears and anxieties, and not had a desire to overcome them, my children may have feared dogs as much as I did – if not more!

The second type of anxiety I talked about is our anxiety around our children’s future. What will become of them if they don’t study hard? What will happen if they fail in the test? What will happen if they don’t finish their homework or project in time? What will happen if they don’t get into a good college? What kind of job will they get if they don’t get into the best engineering college in the country? It is a competitive world after all.

How will they manage in the world if they don’t learn how to struggle? How will they build relationships if they are so selfish? What will the world say about me and my parenting if my child does not end up with a respectable job/career/profession? What will happen if my child falls into bad company? What will happen to my child after I am gone? What will happen if my child falls sick? What will happen if…

So many anxieties, and each one of them natural and justified. Being anxious is half the story of parenting. We need to just be mindful about not making it the whole story.

Is our anxiety about our child’s future preventing us from being with our child in the present? Do we avoid playing with them because we need to push them to spend all their time studying and doing homework, because they need to get into the best college ten years down the line (which of course we cannot control)? Do we avoid spending time with them because we need to ensure that we have a big enough bank balance to secure the future (which again we can’t control)? Do we avoid connecting with them now because we are so distracted by our anxieties about the future, that we can’t waste time being with them in the present? We need to somehow control that future. Somehow.

To me it appears that the best way to do that, ironically, is not to try and control the environment, which of course we cannot, no matter how hard we try. But, instead, to try and secure our relationship with our child.

We should try to deal with our anxieties outside of the parent-child relationship. Recognize them, understand them, and consciously set them aside either by talking to a counsellor or a trusted friend. And then learn to be with your child in the present, in the moment, mindfully and whole-heartedly. Give your children a relationship they can count on, and feel secure enough to come back to in case of a failure. Just that knowledge will give them the strength, confidence and courage to march on ahead, full-steam – pushing their boundaries and achieving their potential in an area of their choice.

And I repeat, I said a relationship they can count on, not a bank balance!

Ask your counsellor - Q&A column

[The following column answered by me appeared in the Deccan Herald Education page on May 28, 2015]

Dear Madam

Ever since I started high school my dad and I have had problems. As the years went by I realized what I was doing wrong and changed with the help of a therapist. But it seems that no matter what I do, I can never gain his approval. He wants me to be clean but I can never do it to his standard. He wants me to have good grades but my one B upsets him. He thinks I’m not a normal teenager because I don’t want to spend every second of my free time cleaning rather than watching TV or playing video game part of the time and cleaning the rest. If I don’t keep my room clean for one day he turns off the wi-fi and the cable. I have learned to bite my tongue in most situations but I’m at my wit’s end, I don’t know how to deal with his controlling behavior any longer without snapping, and I can’t tell him how I feel (ever) because he thinks I’m trying to be manipulative. Please, I need advice, any advice is better than none.
(name withheld)

Dear adolescent

A big part of adolescence involves individuating from your parents, and forming your own identity – figuring out who you are, what you like, what you dislike, who your friends are, what you want to do, and not do. In this process you will go through the process of liking some of the traits and beliefs of your parents, and disliking some of them. This is a healthy process and it is good that you are able to engage with it. Unfortunately, parents sometimes are not able to make this transition along with the child, and don’t allow the relationship to evolve from one that is autocratic to one that is more democratic It may be helpful for you to go for some family counselling which will help you understand your parents, and help them understand you. They are, after all, doing what they believe is in your best interest; they just don’t know how to do it effectively. You could all do with some help and you could try suggesting it to them. Your parents will have their own set of issues which will surface during the time of family therapy.

In the meantime, whenever you have a disagreement and want to say something, try telling him how that makes you feel, instead of focusing on what your father said or did. For example, if he tells you to clean up your room when you just did it, don’t shout back, or question him on why he keeps telling you to do it. Just say “when you keep asking you to clean the room, I feel hurt/ sad / frustrated/ angry/ put down/ not good enough” or whatever it is that you feel. What this approach does is, it takes the focus away from what he is doing (which naturally will make him, or anyone in his position, defensive) and brings the focus to how you are feeling (and I am quite sure his aim is not to make you feel the way you do, just that he does not realize it). Hope this helps.

Dear Madam,

There is a girl I like in one of my classes at school. It started off as an observation, but then I became interested, so I decided to offer her the seat next to me in class, and she accepted. After our class work was finished we talked a bit but that was only for two days. I learned that we share interests in music and literature etc. Well after that we didn’t talk but we smiled at each other and said “hi” and “bye,” and then winter break happened. When we came back I continued the same greetings. I want to be more than her friend, but I don't know how. That is why I ask you for assistance before the school year is over. By the way some traits of hers: She’s quiet and doesn’t have a lot of friends. I’ve only seen one or two. She’s a good student, also a bit slow in responding. She also doesn't look people in the eyes, talks very quietly. She’s lazy — meaning that she told me she just goes home and watches TV. Basically I’m asking you should I make a move — asking her for her number or asking her out for a walk to the park? Some of my characteristics are like hers. 
P M 

Dear PM
I am not in a position to tell you whether you should make the first move or not. If your heart tells you to, do it. What are your fears around it? Learn to take a risk. But that is what it is – a risk. Which means there is a 50 per cent chance that she may accept your first move, or a 50 per cent chance she may reject it. You will need to be able to interpret the fact that she does not accept your first move appropriately (in case she does not accept it). Which means that you must not see it as a rejection of you, but just that she was not ready for something more at this time. It also does not mean that because you like her, she has to like you. Nor does it mean that if you like her at this point in your life, your feelings are going to stay constant forever and that she is the one for you. A relationship involves two people, and if you are willing to take the next step with an open, exploratory stance, then go ahead and take the risk. Remember, this is not a final destination or goal, nor is she a trophy to be won. She is another human being with her own sets of choices, likes and dislikes, and she has every right to express them.