I guess it depends on the car you started in and how easy it is to stall. My Jeep Cherokee with an inline 6 would have been an incredibly easy car to learn on, but my RX-8 - with about the same amount of low-end torque as a sewing machine - was much less forgiving. If it had been my first manual car, it would have taken ages to feel comfortable.

And to your question, the answer is actually yes. Because fewer folks in the US drive manual cars, the ones that do are often proud of having the skill.