I can't imagine "not knowing how to shift" would be a reason not to get a bike. If you've never had a road bike, why would you know how to do this?
When I got my first road bike, I had been riding a bike with trigger shifters. The switch didn't seem too arduous and I am not the most coordinated person in the world! DH showed me when I had the bike on the trainer in the LBS and it seemed kind of intuitive. I spent a bit of time in the middle ring, exploring the range of gears on the right, but I also had to use the granny right away, too. The big ring never worked well on my first road bike, so it wasn't until I got my Trek that I started using that.
I made the decision not to switch to SRAM when I got my custom bike, after someone explained how it worked. After using Shimano for almost 10 years, I knew switching back and forth between systems on my 2 bikes would not be good for me, as I like things the same. It probably would have been OK to switch if that's the only system I would be using.