Fox,
I flew an Aerobird Challenger for a couple months at parks and fields near work and home before I joined a club. The Aerobirds (Xtreme and Challenger) are great for starters. The lesser hobby zone models don't have elevator, they rely on throttle changes to change pitch/altitude. The Aerobirds allow you to get started with the sport mode (elevator is mixed into rudder to help keep the nose up) and then move on to pro mode (elevator and rudder completely separate).

My next plane was a Midwest Aerobat. Even through it was an ARF kit, it was quite an experience building it up. I wanted to steer clear of the RTFs (e.g. NextStar) because I thought I would get bored too quickly with their lack of performance. That may still be true, but once you move up to the larger/balsa based models, the stakes become much higher.
I did things to my Aerobird that would have annihilated a larger balsa model. All it needed was a new wing ($16) and I could be out flying the next day. The toughest thing about flying the bigger planes is how you feel when you crash hard enough to need to repair something. I had three crashes like that and was just starting to get used to it when I finally had a serious crash. I stalled turning out of tail wind while trying to land and nosed in from about 20 feet. The wing survived, but the fuse was totaled. In addition to installing everything in a new fuse, I have the added fun of worrying about how much dirt might have been ingested through the carb. I suppose I did pretty well all things considered. I got about 30 flights out of it.

The stress and confusion of building up your first ARF, learning the subtleties of glow engines, etc. is something you just have to go through. That being said, I would adivse the following.
(1) Fly an Aerobird challenger until your almost bored. That is to say, you don't get nervous/butterflies whenever you fly.
(2) Get Realfight G2 or some other sim and practice landing, A LOT.
(3) Check out a club, and join it. I received a lot of help and good advice for my glow plane.