My new relationship is a bit weird!

[Adinnieken]

As other's have said, take it slowly. That's more to do with your emotional attachment, because you seem like you're in a rush to make this relationship work. The thing is, to make it work you have to give her time and space.

It's never a good thing when a girl wants to keep a relationship secret. It also doesn't matter if she broke up with him. Girls are more emotionally invested into a relationship than guys typically are. So, just because she broke up with him doesn't mean anything. She's obviously hurt, if not bitter, by the experience. I watched two friends go through exactly the same thing you did. The girl friend was cheated on by an ex, broke up with him, and then hooked up with boy friend. She kept it secret, even from me and I talked to them every day but the parents knew on both ends. They even did stuff together (made out, etc). Then she two-timed him. As a best friend to both of them, I more or less said F-You to both of them because they kept it from me. That in turn put me in the awesomely awkward spot of knowing everything she was doing with this other guy, and encouraging her in her relationship pursuits, whilst also still consoling him with a past break-up experience that he was still trying to get through.

What I'm trying to warn you about is don't be a victim of a rebound. Don't set expectations for the relationship, especially before it's really even begun. Be her friend, be creative in terms of spending time together (i.e. go to gigs, movies, lunch or dinner dates). Don't try to be romantic for the sake of being charming or romantic. If there is something you see that you think she'd appreciate, pick it up for her, but until she commits to a relationship don't be romantic for romance sake. It'll hurt your chances in the end.

Allow her to talk about her ex, but give her reason to move on from him. Her talking about him isn't good for her if she's trying to get over him. And if she insists on continuing to talk about him, especially about things she's already going over and over, then it's a good sign that she's not over him at all.

If that ends up being the case, then let her go. Just let her know you recognize that she's still very much into her ex, but that you're very much into her and you just can't be in a one-sided relationship. If there was/is anything between you two, she'll make the choice to be with you, but it may take her time to figure out what she has with you vs. him.

If you invest too much of yourself too soon, then you'll end up kicking yourself if things go horribly bad. You'll feel embarrassed, for which you shouldn't be, and you'll feel stupid, for which you were not. You just got the cart before the horse.

Guys tend to want to go fast, you need to take things slow. VERY SLOW. If you don't get your expectations too high, if you don't invest yourself too heavily into it and things do go wrong, then at best you may still have a great friend that you really adore. But if you let yourself be used, you may likely regret the whole affair in the end.