Buying the manual is a good idea. My daughter wanted a Mini for her first car and I insisted she get a manual. She had the car for five years and doesn't regret it one bit, even though she upsized to an auto Buick Enclave since (and I bought her Mini
). Now she'll always know how to drive a manual, while her husband never learned.
My advice would be to have someone else drive it home from the dealer with you, so that you could practice on your own in a safe place later, rather than being thrown into the fire at the dealership.
There are countless YouTube instructional videos on driving a manual, but Matt Farrah has an exceptionally good one on his channel The Smoking Tire. It's especially good for a Camaro because his instruction is focused towards performance cars with lots of power.