Looking for Mr. Goodbar, like all of Rossner's novels, deals with the theme of attachments, which was to become the title of the novel to follow. In an interview with Liz Driven of CBS News in 1977, Rossner stated her belief that the fear of being attached and not being attached are the same, and not opposites as some people would believe. She says Terry is afraid to be attached because of her fear of loss.

She considers her major theme to be "people coming together and coming apart, sometimes from houses, sometimes from other people."

The books prior to Looking for Mr. Goodbar each dealt with this theme of attachments. Ruth Kossoff, the bright Jewish heroine of To the Precipice (1966), has a number of relationships with men during her life. The attachment between two sisters is the focus in Nine Months in the Life of an...