Shrek's older sister.. lol. I love it.

I'm not sure what the answer is to this. But my inclination would say that the need to be presentable, a lot of it is a from a place of insecurity. That's just my experience. I think it could come from different places depending on the person. Like maybe being presentable for some people comes from a place of self-respect.

My mom would have a cleaning frenzy freak-out every time we had people over. She was always worried about how her house measured up to other people's houses in terms of cleanliness.

She could always be found saying that her really close friends also had messy houses. Extra points to them if she thought their houses were messier than hers. Like she liked it that there wasn't pressure coming from them. Solidarity in piles of laundry I suppose.

I don't think she ever really found any value in having a clean house in itself. It was just always about appearances.

I found myself doing the same thing when I got my own house. And now I just concentrate more on feeling good enough however I am. And my house is just naturally tidy I guess. It's not really a source of freak-out anymore.

This is a really interesting question though, I'm going to start paying attention!