Am I wasting my time or is it going somewhere?

I've been helped by you guys before, and once again I turn to you! Just so you know the context, I'm 25 years old and have never been in a relationship! I'm in a study abroad programme, where I met this girl who is also in a study abroad programme. We started going out but I wasn't sure if she was friendzoning me or not, so I decided to tell her that I liked her and maybe try to start something "serious". Long story short, she told me that she liked me too but that she was afraid of relationships because she was hurt in the past and she didn't want it to happen again, so she thought the best was to continue "dating" and see what happened in time and let it happen and don't force anything. I said I loved that idea, because having no previous experience I'd rather take it very slowly; but now I really feel ready to take it to the next step and don't want o waste more time. Although my gut and friends are telling me everything is going well, the problem is that she's a very shy and "emotionally inexpressive" girl. This makes it really hard for me to know where she think this is going or if she feels more ready to begin something (or if she doesn't want anything now). Unfortunately (or fortunately) I really, really, really like her and don't want to let this go without trying. So, basically I think I have two options: 1) Next time I go out with her, I try to kiss her (yes, we haven't kissed) and see how she reacts. 2) Next time I go out with her, I tell her I want to talk about this again just to know how she feels and where does she think this may go. While I think option 1 is best, I know myself and if she rejects me (even if it's only because she got a little bit scared) I'll get very discouraged and it will be very hard for me to keep up with the friendship (or whatever this is). What do you think I should do? If you have other ideas please share. Happy new year and thank you so much!

I don't understand why it says my post was removed?

Hi! I have some questions for you. How many dates have the two of you gone on, just the two of you? Is she about your age? Do you know what the past problem is that has made her so skittish? Because through the normal course of things, I'd say trying to steal a little kiss is a fine idea. That's a good way to find out if she's really into you or not. BUT, if her issue is really serious she could have a negative reaction to it. If you don't know what the reaction is about, you could end up feeling hurt and confused by what feels like a rejection. So I could give you a better response if I knew a bit more, but unless we're dealing with really deep trauma trying to kiss her seems like a perfectly natural and nice thing to do.

Hi! Thanks for replying. We are about the same age (I'm 8 months older). She's very shy and I have a feeling that, like me, she has very little experience with these things. I'm also shy and, while I'm not bad at flirting and all that with random girls, whenever I really like someone I'm really bad at it because I overthink everything. Even so, I've been touchy and "hugsy" and all, and she has never backed off... but she's not touchy herself, but a friend of both of us told me that's because she's very shy. We went on about 5 dates before I told her I liked her and we had the conversation, and about 2 after that. It may seem we went out less after we talked, but it's just because we both got really busy with school and she went home for the holidays 3 weeks after we talked; I feel we got a lot closer after talking about it. Also, while she's been home we've been talking every day. Besides those dates, we also spent a lot of time together just the two of us doing other things that I wouldn't consider dating. I don't know what her past problem is, but she said something about being a problem with a friend of hers and that after it happened they even stopped talking to each other and she doesn't want that to happen. I'm thinking maybe during the next date I could start leading the conversation that way and ask her if she would be comfortable telling me what happened so I can know better. And then decide if I should try to kiss her. Do you think that's a good idea?