question: This article examines the transformation of singledom during the COVID-19 pan-demic, scrutinising the impact of rules and regulations governing proximity, touch and sex I focus on government responses in Australia, situating the nation’s experience in a global con-text National discussions were strangely sexless, presuming widespread coupledom and em-phasising the lost, non-sexual intimacies of families and older people I contrast this to broader theoretical claims of a ‘transformation of intimacy’ that posit a move to atomised relations across the Global North, including a growing tendency towards singledom Yet assumptions of coupledom clearly persist in Australian policy and social life I reflect on transformations of singledom and living alone during and prior to the pandemic, exposing tensions between theorisations, local realities, and the governance of sex and singledom © The Author(s)