This is turning into the "It's nawt a skirt, its a fookin' kilt" debate again...
Personally, in this debate, I'd side with the crazed gent holding the 5 foot claymore... he sounds pretty serious, whereas the other guy is overly concerned with who sees whose ankles.
Anyway, dude, just test drive both, and base your decision on that.
The whole "me make fire with flint and tinder like mighty hunter -- why you no want make fire like man too!?"
bullshit is stupid on many, many levels.
If you will feel like a big wuss in your 7AT Nismo (which, weirdly, no one at Nissan thought would embarrass the Japanese, as that was an option going back to '09 ...), and feeling that way will spoil your fun, then by all means get the 6MT and enjoy all the hearty back slaps, fist bumps and smug nods of approval that await all members of the 3-pedal faithful
I mean, why else would you buy a car except for the admiration of strangers on the internet???
A final thought: If performance isn't the issue for folks (although it sure as hell would be if the 7AT were slower, I suspect...), but rather "feeling connected", and the OP apparently will not feel that way for a good while, then is this all about browbeating a stranger into mastering a new skill?
If so, OP, I say, buy the 7AT so you can enjoy driving right away and invest the time in mastering a 2nd language -- much more useful skill, and if you stumble on a word, you won't hold up traffic.