<human>: Can you condense the text into a few key points?

Ok, so I am a guy that really likes a girl whom I have known for years, but only in the last several months have I had feelings for her. Over these months, we became very close and the best of friends.

Eventually I gained the confidence to ask her out. To put this in perspective, I have never before asked a girl out because I have strict ideas of what the friendship should be like before attempting to commit to a relationship (like knowing her really well and being certain that the feelings are reciprocated). I have never been in a relationship. So, asking her out was really important to me. 

Unfortunately, I was given the answer, "I'm not ready." From what I know, this was her answer because her first relationship sucked, though she is over it; many of her friends have been having relationship troubles, and now her impression on relationships is not good; and for some reason the moment did not feel correct for her, even though I spent about two weeks making an elaborate plan to make the moment as sweet and sentimental as possible. I have been led to believe that there is still hope, and that "I'm not ready" was not synonymous to "no."

We both agree that remaining awesome friends is obvious, but our friendship since I asked her out is different. It's slightly awkward, and I seem to be putting forth all the effort. I figured that I should give her a lot of a) space, and b) time. So I have. It's been a month (which might not be enough time), and I have given her space, while maintaining the friendship.

I want to get out of this, though. I love being her friend, but I would truly prefer being her boyfriend. And being so romantically ignorant and inexperienced, I need help. I guess my question is this: Given all this context, how can I get the girl who has rejected me once to be my girlfriend? Is it even possible at this point, or should I just be fortunate that I have such an awesome friendship?
<bot>: I love a girl and she rejected me when I asked her out. I've been given reason to believe that there is still hope, so how do I start a relationship from this mess?