The Perfect Man-ual
– by Barbara Beach
I used to say that I would never date a guy who drove an automatic. Ha. Like I could be so choosy. What I really meant was that if I could date the perfect guy, among more important qualities like com-passion, honesty and a sense of humor, he would drive a stick.
Okay, maybe those other things aren’t more important; I just didn’t want to admit how shallow I am.
Recently, I read a story in the Washington Post with the headline, “As Drivers Age, An Automatic Shift.” The article, citing Ward’s Automotive Yearbook, reported that manual transmission sales have shrunk from 28.6 percent in 1960 (the year I was born), to 11.8 in 1995.1 In this article a 31-year-old woman is quoted as saying she wouldn’t date a man who drives an automatic, that these men tend to be boring. Ah, let’s hear it for sisterhood. A fellow traveler. Or at least a fellow passenger.
This statistic of shrinking manual transmission drivers depressed me on many levels. Not least among them was the fact that the demographic pool from which my dream man might spring was drying up at an alarming rate. It also reminded me of another statistic, one universally detested by single women. If you’re a woman, you know the one: it was reported in one of the news magazines a few years ago that a woman’s chances at age forty of getting married were about the same as her chances of get-ting killed by a terrorist. At the time, I, in my usual self- referential way, came up with my own statistic tailored to my own life—my chances at forty of marrying a man who currently was driving a manual transmission were about as great as being killed by a terrorist who drove a manual transmission.
Forgive my digression. The point of this column is to wonder aloud where all the purists have gone. Anyone who has ever driven a stick knows the pure joy, the oneness a driver feels with her engine. Perhaps it is just ignorance, perhaps many of the 88.2 percent who reportedly nowadays drive automatics don’t know what they’re missing. Is that possible? Are people learning to drive without even being exposed to the choice? How tragic.
I have my brother David to thank for being given that choice when I was still young and my mind was still malleable. Although at the time, I didn’t thank him. I learned to drive a manual exactly half my lifetime ago, when I was a freshman in college. My big brother, car nut and law student, was also living in California, and volunteered to teach me how to drive the used Toyota Celica I had just purchased. He generously gave up an afternoon at the library, perhaps not anticipating what a huge sacrifice he was making at the time. If he weren’t my brother surely he would have sued me for the case of whiplash he could have convincingly claimed after an hour of being violently jerked about while I tried to get the hang of depressing the clutch and shifting the lever simultaneously. I shouldn’t have been surprised by my lack of coordination; I had never been one of the lucky ones in the schoolyard able to pat my stomach and rub my head. Nearing the end of his patience, David took me to the steepest hill he could find, stopped midway, turned off the engine and ordered me into the driver’s seat. Terror washed over me as inch by inch we slipped toward the bottom, my own private version of Space Mountain in reverse. Then, in what was to be the only time in our siblinghood that I can recall, my brother socked me in the arm. I burst into tears as I watched him descend the hill on foot, and I swear I could see steam streaming out of his ears like one of those Saturday morning cartoon characters. I couldn’t believe that he had actually left me stranded there, leaning against the bumper, crying like the useless girl I had proven myself to be. But when ten, then twenty minutes passed by and he failed to return, I admitted he wasn’t coming back. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t stay there indefinitely, but I couldn’t face the driver’s seat alone. I would like to tell you that I dried my eyes, mustered up my courage, got back in the car and conquered the hill. Not even close.
Maybe if I were Sandra Bullock, or Jessica Lange, or even Meg Ryan, and this were a silly romantic comedy, that’s how this scene would have played out. But I’m not like any of those fabulous, feisty dames and my life is no romantic comedy. The part of this story that is like a romantic comedy, is what happened next. A really cute guy, a senior no less, came along and bailed me out, driving me back to my dorm and then offering to pick up where my brother had left off, helping me master the subtleties of operating a manual transmission. And he showed me how you could use the emergency brake as a sort of net, until you got your confidence up. But because my life is not like the aforementioned romantic comedy, the really cute guy fell in love with my really cute roommate.
As they say, reality bites.
My brother and I, however, made up, and still maintain a close relationship (meaning he even lets me drive his Porsche once in awhile). And I can start a manual transmission on any hill, and don’t even need to employ the emergency brake trick.
The Washington Post article cites “changing demographics— fewer carefree youth and more responsibility-laden adults…” Oh please, I’m hardly carefree and I have my share of responsibilities. I can understand that people with kids need a bigger car, and most big cars and vans have automatic transmissions. But certainly there are more than 11.8 percent of the population whose lifestyles could include a manual transmission. We need a new survey for these guys.
Copyright 1996, Miata Magazine. Reprinted without permission.
- According to an article in the August 2020 Car and Driver by 2019 that number had shrunk to just 2%.