Mindy Kaling is famously private when it comes to her romantic life and her two children, five-year-old Katherine and two-year-old Spencer.
But in a new interview with Bruce Bozzi on the iHeart Podcast Table for Two, the 44-year-old got real about her aspirations and frustrations with dating, especially looking back as a mother.
She discussed how when she was younger, she had a desire to find someone to settle down with as quickly as she could. "I was always obsessed with romantic love and obsessing about boys, even when I was, like, 13 or 14 years old.
"I was never someone that boys wanted to date or do anything, so it sort of made the passion and interest more intense," she added. "And there is also a desperation to it that makes you incredibly unhappy. In my 20s, [I wanted] to find someone, anyone, to settle down with," saying later: "All my twenties, I would date guys for two or three years and then break up."
Mindy also discussed how that affected her social life, especially when it came to the prevalent Hollywood social scene, and her growing disdain for it.
"In my thirties, I started to really despise going to parties out here," she said. "I started to really like the vibe of going to friends' houses when they have kids. On one level I wanted to have children, on another level I wanted my social life to change. I wanted it to look different.
© Instagram"I didn't need to be going to some house in the Hills in, like, Outpost or The Birds, where there is no parking and you walk into a party that is just a bunch of dudes my age who are interested in [younger] women."
She poignantly discussed how her desire for children grew when her mother passed away in 2012. "I feel blessed because equal to my desire to find a man, I wanted to have children.
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"And that intensified when my mother died. I didn't want to be on my deathbed…and not have anybody around my bed. I wanted there to be kids and I wanted there to be grandkids."
© InstagramThe actress and writer, who is notoriously private when it comes to the unknown father of her children, added: "The thing that was the most important thing to me was this relationship to these phantom children that I didn't have.
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"I pictured I would live in New York City and they would come visit me to go see plays together and we would have lunch at the Polo Lounge for dinner. They would hang out with me in my sixties and seventies."
© Getty ImagesBack in June, after celebrating her birthday, Mindy elaborated on the same thought with a rare photo of her two kids. She wrote: "I was never a 'kid' person. When my mom passed though, it just clicked in me: I wanted kids with such intense certainty. I bet some of you can relate.
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"Now I'm just trying to be present for them (hard for me! I'm impatient!), being up for anything (again hard for me, I am not whimsical!), and stay healthy for these two guys (ALSO hard! I just want to eat cheesesteaks every meal in front of the TV) for until I'm an old gray skeleton they're like 'mom, you gotta go'.
© Instagram"Man, there are ups and downs in this life!! But my ups seem to be the most important ones right now. Thanks for my birthday love."
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