I learned on an automatic but once had a summer job with the city parks department where I drove a pickup truck. The only truck they had available for me was a manual, so one of the guys on the regular crew took me out for a lesson. An hour later, I passed my "final exam" - starting from a dead stop at the top of a steep hill. It was weird driving to work in an automatic, driving a stick all day, and then going back home in the automatic.
I didn't drive another manual for more than 15 years until I went looking for a car and took a Saturn SL1 out for a test drive. To my own surprise, I didn't stall it even once. I didn't buy it, but not because of the transmission.