How Does Boy Convince Girl She Loves Him as Much as He Loves Her?

The background of this story is that I met my now EX Girlfriend in college in California, where I am from and live. She is from the MidWest and came to college in California. We had been dating successfully for 1 year until she (and parents) could not afford the out of state tuition (this was in 2008 when the economy nose-dived) and she moved back to the Midwest for her last half of college and graduation. We were not able to make the relationship last long being 1,500 miles away, but I take most of the blame for not being more appreciative and trying harder to make it work. We separated agreeably and mutually, and have remained friends seeing each other about every 9 months since then.

Well It has been almost four years since then and I am now about to be 26. I am much more mature and wiser than I was back then, and I can see that in the end I am definitely going to want a family. I can see now how I took her for granted, I can see how much I really care about her as a person and want to be with her, and I want to explore the possibility of dating again and possibly working towards marriage. She is 24 and I don’t think is quite there yet. Despite being from a conservative area of the MidWest where most of the people get married right out of college or earlier, I know this is not a priority of hers. That is fine. I am not in a rush to marry but I am in a rush to “be with” her, and discover if that is a route that would suit us. Think “Garden State.”

We are 1,500 miles apart. I know she cares about me still, and we had even loosely talked about ultimately getting married when she was 25 while we were first dating in college. We last saw each other in mid-December of 2012, about three months ago, and it was a great visit for both of us. When I was visiting, I suggested finding a job in the city she lives in or a nearby city because I am working between jobs only part-time, and she just got a job there. She told me she would consider dating me but couldn’t guarantee that she would. Understandable, and good news to me!

I told her I would start looking for jobs nearby her city so we were at least driving distance or a short flight apart. Since then, however, she has been less and less responsive, more so at any point in the past. So my question is, do I just pick up and move to a neighboring city that would give our reunion a fighting chance? Do I wait until she works with me by trying to somehow get closer before I make the move? Do I sit back and wait until she responds? Now she’s not responding much to me and I don’t want to push her away or scare her, but it is painful, especially when I could be making progress towards her. I absolutely want to be with her, and taking a risk moving away from all of my friends and family is worth it, at least from my vantage point now. The question is how do I go about it?