You can manually add a deal from the 'Deals' page or the 'Quick Add' option and associate, or on the Contact Page, you can click the Contact to open the Details Page and create an associate from there as shown in the below screenshot.
Note: Contacts and Companies are independent of Deals, unless they are associated, in which case you will see history cards in the Details popup across associated records between contacts and deals. Contacts/Companies have their own set of statuses independent of the Deal Statuses.