My wife struggles with a manual. Being a nervous driver she concentrates obsessively on everything going on around her making it difficult adding something else to focus on. It's hilarious watching her try to park in a lot. She's so nervous pulling up a couple feet to get closer to a curb. She's afraid the clutch will engage suddenly and cause us to crash over the curb. I just try to be supportive and hope she'll pick it up but so far I can't convince her to drive outside of empty parking lots...*sigh*
That being said my next car will still be a manual. It's a big part of what makes driving fun for me. I'm not interested in track driving competitively, just having fun, so the slightly quicker lap times are not a big draw for me. It's more about the experience, which is why any of us are interested in BMW's at all I suppose.
I guess I'll have to try to take her out to a country road and practise some more with my dad's Carolla. I wouldn't want her to miss out on all the fun! I'd love to get her out to a track day instruction school or even better a rally school some day. You'd probably never guess it, but she watches F1 religiously with me so I'm hoping that spark is in her somewhere!
-Erich