I think that the problem is, though, that a lot of women (and women especially given the whole body image thing in society) don't realize that they're actually very attractive beneath all of the 'fake' stuff. Either no one has told them or they simply don't believe it because they've been conditioned by our norms to not believe any idea of 'pretty' other than the too-skinny/blemish-free/36-C/tight-butt/etc vision of women.

I agree with WL, there's nothing wrong with wanting to look nice for someone. A lot of guys do it too (without being metrosexual even!), though of course we don't bother with make-up. We'll fix our hair, maybe a shot of cologne (or AXE if you're gross).

The problem is the kind of 'nice' that a lot of girls (and they carry this into their lives as women) feel that they have to look. Its the unrealistic kind of nice. Then you get into the prevalence of eating disorders as a result. Those things scare the crap out of me (no offense to anyone). Many friends of mine, including a girl who I dated for a while, have gone down that path and it is so incredibly difficult, from what I've seen anyway, to make the decision to recover. Its odd, too - this girl that I dated was a petite and skinny dancer who was nonetheless convinced that she was so fat. That, though, is part of the image that we put forth...