Over 10 Years as a Paper Driver

I’m the type who acts quickly when I can intuitively feel excited about something and vividly imagine the future it will bring. But on the flip side, if I can’t clearly picture the future, or if anxiety and hassle outweigh the excitement, I stubbornly refuse to do it no matter what.

With that mindset, I long held a firm “NO” when it came to driving. For me, as a paper driver for over 10 years, driving was only a source of anxiety. Even when people around me said, “Driving is fun,” I simply couldn’t imagine myself enjoying driving at all.

Looking back now, the journey from that state to awakening to the joy of driving, eventually participating in a Porsche driving school in an MT car, was by no means quick or easy. It was definitely thanks to my husband’s patient and persistent encouragement that I finally took the plunge.

The Road to Becoming an MT Driver

I enthusiastically got my license (AT only) in my first year of university, but over the next 12 years, I drove only about five times. One of those times, I scraped the car on a parking ticket machine, which only reinforced my image that “driving is difficult and scary.”

At my first job after graduation, my colleagues and seniors drove to sales appointments, but my boss told me,

“You seem too risky based on how you act normally, so I can’t let you drive.”

So I was the only one who had to get around by train, bus, or on foot. (I also used taxis a lot.)

After moving out on my own, I chose places near stations, so all my commuting and outings were by train. I never felt inconvenienced; in fact, I found it efficient to work on my laptop during train rides. I thought I’d never need to drive a car in my life.

Even after meeting my husband, who loves cars, I had zero interest in them. After we married, even when he said, “It’s better if you can drive,” I still refused to get behind the wheel.

Our cars back then

However, after I had been pregnant with our first child for a while, my husband started saying,

You really need to learn to drive soon. Our home is in the suburbs, so we have to drive everywhere. What if the child suddenly gets a fever and we need to go to the hospital? Will you call a taxi every time? You really have to be able to drive.

I thought, “Well, when you put it that way, it’s true,” and finally mustered the courage to start driving to the nearby supermarket on weekends. But I was so tense I was stiff as a board, and just 10 minutes of driving exhausted me, so I often had my husband drive us back.

Then one day, my husband sent me a message from work:

“Come pick me up in Umeda (Osaka city center) today.”

I thought, “Are you serious? I’ve only driven 10 minutes to the local supermarket—I can’t do that.” I probably replied that way, but I knew I couldn’t keep avoiding it forever. So I steeled myself and decided to pick him up in his then-beloved Mercedes-Benz SLK.

Though I was extremely nervous on my first drive into Osaka city, maybe because I was driving a clearly sporty SLK, no one aggressively cut me off, and many drivers let me merge or change lanes. Somehow, I made it to Umeda.

Here’s a photo my husband took then.

“My wife came to pick me up in Umeda for the first time. Her first solo long drive.”

Though, seriously, parking right in the middle of the road like this is a no-no (-_-). That’s not good…

Still, that experience gave me confidence, and I gradually started driving more often. Last year, I finally participated in a Porsche driving school in an MT Boxster. My husband posted on his social media,

I came to watch my wife at the driving school. When we met, she had zero interest in cars, and now she’s mastered driving an MT car this well.

Built on German Engineering Trust

My husband never forced his car hobby on me, but every time we went for a drive together, he kept saying, “Try driving, try driving.”

Honestly, it was annoying (laughs), and every time he said that, I said hundreds of times, “No, I don’t want to drive!” But his belief that “it’s absolutely better to be able to drive” never wavered. He also often said,

German cars are really different from Japanese ones. They’re super stable on the highway, easy to drive, and you’ll be fine.

Sometimes with tough love, he created opportunities for me to get behind the wheel.

Indeed, the first time I drove the SLK on the highway, I was amazed by its stability. Thanks to driving such a car, I gradually came to trust the car and got better at driving.

Still, I have to say, my husband’s persistence in telling me to drive was impressive. You could say his years of “sales efforts” really paid off.

When I once said, “You sure didn’t give up on nagging me,” he replied, “Of course not, I was serious about it, haha.” I doubt he ever imagined I’d not only start driving but also end up writing a Porsche blog. (I didn’t imagine it either, haha.)

Not just with car life, but going forward, I hope to keep my curiosity alive and keep opening new doors.