Manual is quite easy once you get the hang of it. In fact if you master it, at times you can catch metering errors in the camera.
Most of us started with Manual - focus & setting with film. You learn fast, other wise there was a lot of wasted film. My first camera had no meter. Second had an external incidence meter - you lined up ISO, and aperture with the needle to get exposure. Third one had an in built meter, but setting up was same. Now with DSLR, I just set the ISO and aperture and the camera decides the speed. Still with my AIS Macro it is still fully manual, and there is no meter to refer to!