We present a novel perturbation density-functional theory (DFT) to describe adsorption of associating fluids on surfaces activated with polar sites to which fluid molecules can bond or associate, such as water adsorbing on activated carbon, silica, clay minerals, etc. Association is modeled within the framework of first order thermodynamic perturbation theory (TPT1). In this first of two papers, we explore in detail the changes brought about in a system due to fluid-wall (FW) association. Hence fluid-fluid association is not considered here. However, the theory can be coupled with existing DF theories of associating fluids to study the interplay between the wall-fluid and fluid-fluid association as is shown in a future paper by S. Tripathi. The proposed theory, in excellent agreement with simulations, shows that FW association significantly changes the fluid structure and adsorption behavior. The theory accurately predicts the distribution of bonded and nonbonded species away from the surface, adsorption characteristics and surface coverage over a range of conditions commonly found in several real systems. The most striking feature of the theory is that in addition to properties away from the wall, it also estimates the distribution of the fluid along the surface, or the three-dimensional (3D) structure, despite being one-dimensional (1D) in form. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.