This article addresses the interface between adult needs for intimacy and the psychoanalytic process between a certain population of single female patients and their male analysts. Relational vicissitudes of this patient-analyst pairing are discussed from a perspective that is both psychoanalytic and psychosocial. Influences of gender differences, sociological factors, and the existential nature of prolonged unchosen singlehood on the female analysand's subjective experience comprise the early sections of the article. This discussion is followed by an exploration of the ramifications of singlehood for the analytic process and for the analytic relationship. The concepts of primary intimacy and a primary relational void are introduced, and clinical illustrations are incorporated.