When I was in college, I skipped a lot of class.

I used to rationalize it by saying to myself I was busy with other things. I was running a couple student groups, I was coaching football, I was working a job, I was spending a lot of time at the local bookstore reading marketing books. Besides, I was a good test taker so generally my grades ended up fine. And at the end of four years I got to stand on stage and accept an award for student leadership.

But the truth was I was being irresponsible for four years. My education was expensive, and I was cheating myself (and my folks) by not sitting there every single day, learning about waiting lines or beta or cumulous clouds or whatever.

To this day, I periodically have this nightmare about college. It’s always the same – I’m in the final semester of my senior year, and I’m all set to graduate. A week before finals I realize that I have this biology class (it’s always biology) that I’ve never been to. I’m going to flunk the class, and there’s nothing I can do about it. It sounds stupid, but the fear is absolutely petrifying.

When I got out of school, I started a company with a few guys. And as many of you know, I proceeded to burn it into the ground. I could chalk it up to any number of things, but the truth is I wasn’t willing to do the things I needed to do to make it successful. I didn’t manage my money that well. I didn’t ask for help or advice nearly enough. And the biggie – I did anything I could to avoid going out and selling myself.

Once again, I was being irresponsible. I was acting like a child.

In a few months, I’m getting married. I’ve been thinking a lot about where I’ve come from, where I’m going, all the ways my life will change as a result. Making the decision to get married is a very adult decision to be making. And last weekend, I was overcome with fear. It was the same feeling I felt when I had those nightmares. It was the same feeling I felt when my company burned down. It was the fear of knowing that you no longer have the option of acting like a child.

I’ve realized recently that the guys growing up in America today have the luxury of avoiding manhood for a long time. It didn’t used to be that way – you were expected to provide for the family at a young age. You were expected to work the farm, or become an apprentice in some trade, or commute to the local factory. Your parents lived with you when they aged, and you were accountable to take care of them – you couldn’t simply shuttle them off to a retirement community and avoid having to deal with them.

These days, the world is different. Relative to the rest of the world, we grow up in safe, affluent neighborhoods. Only some of us have parents who expect us to work when we turn 16. Many of us are given cars, our tuition is paid for, and when we get into trouble we have folks ready and willing to bail us out. Our culture tells us that we should wait to get married, wait to have kids, and avoid “settling down.” We’re told to not worry about picking a major in college, because we’ll end up changing careers anyway. The billboards and television advertisements around us tell us to spend everything we make. We’re think that the best uses of our time after work consist of either getting plastered at the bar, gambling online, playing with our new XBox or posting pictures of ourselves taking bong hits on MySpace.

We’re fat, happy, rich, people living in a fat, happy, rich country. And our culture has created a bunch of 20 and 30 and 40 year old boys. Men are in desperately short supply.

The problem is that we don’t see anything wrong with this. Our women have forced themselves to live with their boyfriend and his Madden football and his pizza boxes piled up in the corner and his affinity for Jaeger bombs. Because they’ve grown up in the same culture that tells them this is acceptable behavior for guys our age.

No wonder women don’t see a problem with dating a guy 20 years their senior. They figure they won’t find a guy who acts like an adult unless he’s at least 40.

Our women don’t need more boys. They need, long for men. There is something programmed in them that tells them they need a guy who is strong, courageous, responsible. They need men who put the game system away, who decide to forget the bar because they have to do their taxes. They need men who have insurance and careers that are going somewhere – not so we can pay their credit card bill but so we can be counted on. They need men who are mature, hard working, willing to act like an adult.

They realize that one day, they might be married to us. One day, they might have children with us – and a boy doesn’t raise another boy very well. They realize that a husband who lets the mortgage payment go unpaid because they lost three grand in online blackjack isn’t really a desirable trait. Nor is a guy who refueses to put the hesitation aside and make the phone calls, pound on the doors, do the things they need to do to build a successful company or career.

The thing is, I think guys know this deep down. I think that in the recesses of our hearts we know that we’re meant to be more. There is a reason we grew up admiring He-Man, a reason we look up to certain guys who have their acts together. We know that within us lies a tremendous amount of energy and power. But we’re afraid of what might happen if we tap into that power. It represents a risk – a risk because people will start counting on us, start respecting us, start admiring us.

And if we fail, if we’re not good enough, then our worst fears about ourselves will be confirmed. Easier to not step out of the door and always wonder whether you’re good enough than step out, get run over and confirm you’re not up to the task.

Last weekend, I had one of those moments. I wanted to crawl back into a shell, to play it safe. My fiance saw all of it – saw the fear, saw the nightmare playing through in my mind. And what she said really shook me up – she said that as her husband, it doesn’t matter whether I hit a bunch of home runs or fall on my face over and over again. What matters is that I have the courage to face who I am, to face the power I have within me and own up to it.

It’s the difference between being a man and a boy, and at the end of the day it’s the only thing that matters.