Long story short: I’m (24M) American, and I’m visiting my long-distance Romanian boyfriend for the first time soon. In Romania, most cars are manual - including all the ones owned by my boyfriend’s family (I’ll be staying with them). I’ve never driven a manual before. His dad told me he can give me a quick lesson, and that I’m welcome to use their cars if I want; otherwise, I can rent an automatic. I don’t have access to any manual cars here in the U.S. to practice on, so I’m not sure what to do.
I miss the prevalence of manual transmissions. Every one of my old first beater cars were manuals. But it seems that they’ve been phased out for the most part and it sucks. Driving Automatics isn’t really driving (I’ll die on that hill).
In answer to your question, no, it’s not unreasonably hard to get the hang of as long as you accept the fact that you’re going to stall it a few times at first and don’t get embarrassed about it, you’ll pick it up pretty quick.
In my experience, the people who struggle are the people who are too tense to learn because they’re afraid of looking like a fool for stalling it while they’re learning. Accept the fact that it’ll happen, and you’ll be able to relax and learn in no time.