One of my life rules is never live anywhere with a population density high enough to make driving a stick suck. I did a week in San Fran with a stick and all that “move two car lengths idle” killed my left knee. After a couple of days of that I turned to my hosts and said “tell me about this mass transit system I hear is so good” did most of the rest of the trip on the bus/ subway.
I don’t blame you; I remember watching a girl vomit when we were on a camping trip because she was in the back seat of a stick in a traffic jam...