Mindy Kaling Says She's 'Always Open' to Finding Love: 'I'm a Romantic at Heart'

Mindy Kaling is past her teenage boy-crazy phase, but that doesn’t mean she’s taken romance off the table.

In conversation with Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager on Monday’s episode of Today, the 44-year-old Never Have I Ever creator said her once boy-obsessed nature has “definitely” ended. 

“I think when I was younger, I was so far away from anything close to attention from boys, so I just imagined it,” the actress said as she reflected on her teenage years.

She continued, “I had this over-active imagination cause even then I was like a writer and a creative, so I used to love these stories about people falling in love and going to movies and seeing Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in romantic comedies and all that.”

At the time, romance was like “science fiction” to Kaling. “It was so far away from anything that I was part of,” she told Kotb, 59, and Bush Hager, 41.

Now, The Mindy Project star has slightly more realistic expectations about love, but she’s still open to it.

“I’m still a romantic at heart and I write these stories about people finding love when they least expect it. So of course, I’m open to that and I believe in magic and timing.” 

Kaling added that her father found love again after the death of her mother, and his second chance at romance gives her hope too.

“He’s an Indian man and he was in his 60s and he moved to L.A. without knowing anyone and then they met in the same apartment building. And they are such an amazing couple.”

She continued, “People find love in unexpected places. So I don’t know about it for me personally right now, but I’m always open to it.”

Earlier in the show, Kaling chatted with Kotb and Savannah Guthrie about another high school milestone — prom.

The co-hosts revealed that neither of them had gone to prom after they bonded with Kaling about being “huge” nerds in high school.

But Kaling shared that she went to both junior and senior prom. 

Kotb followed up, asking, "Wait, did you get asked or did you ask him?" Kody said. "Because I only got a date when I asked. That's why I'm asking."

Kaling sarcastically replied, “How dare you?” before she said she “was asked” to both dances.

Kaling’s love life has long been a private matter for her — and thus a prominent source of public intrigue. 

She has two children, daughter Katherine "Kit" Swati, 5, and son Spencer Avu, 3, but she has never disclosed the identity of the children’s father.

One of her only public romances was her on-and-off relationship with her Office costar B.J. Novak.

The two dated during the show’s early years before splitting for good in 2007. "We were in love with each other, and we were reckless idiots," Novak, now 44, said of the relationship, which he described as a "tumultuous, romantic, toxic, boundary-less mess" while he presented Kaling with the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television in February.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

However, their relationship has been a major source of interest publicly as they stayed close friends after their split.

Last year, Kaling told Drew Barrymore during an appearance on her talk show that Novak is “part of our family,” noting that he is godparent to both her children “and they’re so attached to him,” but that doesn’t mean romance is in the cards.

“We've known each other for a long, long time and I think anyone who's been friends with someone for 18, 19 years and at one point dated and now doesn't, they maybe understand this. You have exes that you wouldn't necessarily marry now.”