SITUATION

I'm a Kannadiga guy, born and brought up in Mumbai. But clearly, life had plans and looks like BLR is going to be my कर्मक्षेत्र.

I'm primarily looking for a Kannada person from my community in this process. A year ago, I received interest from a Maharashtrian girl but from the same community.

We spoke a couple of times and it all looked ok on the surface. I addressed the elephant in the room which was the **Language Barrier.**

She was very positive about it and said it wasn't a big thing and that she'd learn it eventually and how it's the person that matters.

Now since I've grown up in Mumbai, Marathi comes naturally to me and people don't really recognise me as a Kannadiga until I tell them.

But my parents, not so much. They understand but they can speak in bits and pieces.

Me being the practical fool I am, thought it was unrealistic to expect a new person to gel in a family and a social circle where everybody spoke Kannada (since most of my family is in BLR).

I even imagined scenarios where some of us cousins/relatives would hangout and be chilling but the poor girl would feel left out cuz she wouldn't get the language. I mean I can translate in scenarios where it's important but when you're joking/if it's kannada specific humour, the joke often gets lost in translation.

I've sort of watch this unfold with an elder cousin who married a gujju gal. She's the sweetest bhabhi but in a family setting she doesn't hang around much since nobody speaks in Hindi. Can't blame nobody here really. So i gave her the reason and she lowkey understands. The families even had a formal chai nashta meet.

CONSTRAINT

I'm 32 now, and I've been in the process for 2 years. Came close 1-2 times and things didn't work out with the Kannada girls. And the current lot that I've met in the past 8 months; I have a feeling that it's only going to get difficult from here.

CURRENT

My parents have kept telling me to reconsider her and that language won't matter to them etc. I know it won't to them or me. But I don't want my wife to step into an environment where everything is alien. The household, the people, the city etc would be different already.

Adding this variable could make things challenging is what I felt.

However, we're still connected on socials and occasionally wish each other; Birthdays, NYE, Diwali, comment on stories etc.

Questions

1. Am I overthinking this barrier ?

2. Should I make a move and ask her if we should try again?

3. If yes, how? I'm not even sure if she's engaged or something now.

People of Reddit who've been there, done that, what do I do? How do I go about this situation?

TLDR:

32M Kannadiga from Mumbai, probably destined for BLR. A year ago, I met a Maharashtrian girl from my community. We clicked, but I rejected the match over the Kannada language barrier, imagining her trapped in a room full of Kannada-speaking relatives with no subtitles. 😭

2 years and several failed matches later, I'm wondering if I massively overthought it.

We're still connected on socials, so… did I fumble? Should I shoot my shot again, or has the train left the station? 🚂

After the HIV outbreak news in BLR, which spans the 18-25 age group (may of course include outliers in the other age groups as well), is anybody else also genuinely scared of doing casual in BLR ?

The STD spectrum also includes other infections which are contagious.

Now, most of my friends in the 29-33 age group have deleted their accounts and are getting themselves tested ASAP.

They've probably sworn off it(dating apps n casual dating) for good.

Those who continue doing it, are you guys planning to ask for a report or how?

How's the BLR public feeling about this?