The growth of turning from boy into man is a lot like the evolution chart.

We begin a hairy creature on all fours before gradually turning into a self-actualized human man – who is still naked for reason.

I bring this up because on Friday, I took another baby step along the line toward manhood.

I bought a pair of Fila shoes.

Part of being a boy is the psychological desire to be a man. We all want to be men, but then we get stopped at roadblocks that come with being a man. Mainly, what would others think of me?

All young boys begin as the creature on the far left of the chart. We go from shitting whenever and wherever we want and it’s considered progression when we simply wipe our boogers whenever and wherever we want. We are slow to evolve because we are in a state that doesn’t understand that there’s evolution to be had.

My boyhood consisted of me making random and aggressive loud noises for reasons that are still unclear to me.

“Jesse,” you may have asked. “Why was it necessary for you to go ‘baaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!’ while running up and down the stairs?”

“I don’t know.”

I still don’t know.

Eventually, we learn to stand on two feet but still look like more beast than man – this is the period between middle school and high school.

You are still engrained in a pack mentality where nearly action taken in public is driven by the strong force of, What will my friends think if I did this? I am a pussy somebody who cries easily, but I don’t think during high school my friends ever saw me shed a tear. It is a sign of weakness to cry and when you live in a pack, any sign of weakness automatically drops you in the power struggle and opens you up to an unlimited barrage of ruthless verbal attacks.

You have to remember, we just started walking on two legs.

Then comes the middle stage ­of the chart – the period of your twenties when you have discovered a weapon (alcohol, among other things) that has made you more dangerous. There’s still a little bit of boyhood left in you because your face still resembles more of a monkey, but you’re kind of starting to figure it out.

This is the stage that I am in, but recent actions and feelings have led a surge toward the fourth stage. One of them was a purchase of shoes for twenty bucks.

Stage 1 of the story: A few weeks ago, a bunch of us from work were checking out the clothes department of Costco when our manager pointed out the Fila sneakers on sale for twenty bucks. One of the workers, a dude in his mid-twenties who is infinitely cooler than I am and who DJs in Chicago, laughed them off.

“Man, I’m not wearing Filas,” he said.

Clearly, he isn’t as self-actualized as I am.

Stage 2 of the story: Earlier this week, I was coming back from walking Dexter when I noticed the bottoms of the black Nikes I’ve worn for four years had separated from the rest of the shoe. Now, this has happened before when the bottom of a pair of boots I wore started to separate from the rest of it. I actually wore them out to lunch with Katie, the bottoms making a loud flopping sound that I found funny that she, interestingly enough, was embarrassed about.

“Okay, this,” she fictitiously said, waving her finger at my boots, “is done.”

That was that.

I was forced along the evolutionary chart.

However, when my black Nikes ended up at the end of the road, I just took them to my apartment’s garbage room and tossed them down the shoot. Here is the very, very important part of the story: my first thought wasn’t to go out and get some badass kicks. Instead, my mind instantly went to those twenty-dollar Filas. They have a foamy sole!

I wore them today and, I got to tell you – pretty comfortable.

For the record, this is not the first time that I had black Fila shoes. When I was in middle school, focusing on limiting how many boogers I wiped on places, I got some black Fila basketball shoes for the season – ones that my parents bought. To cement a previous point, the shoes instantly became a laughing stock and I had to use my above-average sense of humor to wiggle out of it and made a spoof about them around the Nelly song “Air Force Ones.”

“Big boy, stomping in my black Fi-las!”

The journey from boyhood to manhood is an infinite journey, and the purchase of the black shoes was simply hitting a new mile marker. Women love to complain, and rightfully so (so you can’t complain about me complaining that you like to complain), that the media portrays women having flawless faces, large breasts, skinny waists and overall perfection. You see it in movie, TV shows, and magazine covers. However, men face that too.

Don’t believe me? Well, here’s some covers of Men’s Fitness, and here’s this and this.

I know that I am still in the latter parts of the third stage of manhood, but I’m trying to push forward. I want the spear in my hand.

The graduation from the third to fourth stage is fatherhood.

A few displays next to the shoes I bought were the classic White Dad White New Balance sneakers that were being sold for seven bucks. However, I believe federal law prohibits me from buying those shoes until I actually have a child.

Honestly, I think my card would be declined if I tried.