I love driving manuals, learned on an 5 speed New Beetle and mostly drive a 2012 Mazda 6 now. My partner has a newer automatic Mazda 3 and it just feels wrong to have the car guess what I want lagging behind me rather than me just telling the car directly ahead of when I need it.
The only argument that's swayed me away from being entirely on the side of manual cars is that if I'm out hiking with friends who I've driven to the trail and who can't drive my car and I get hurt in a way that prevents me from driving then we could end up stranded. The next car I buy will likely be electric so it ends up not mattering anyways.