Please, enlighten me

I'm an absolute stranger to RP, I heard about it from time to time, Saw some people rant about it here and there, but never engaged with the activity.

I like writing, and just worldbuilding in general, but wouldn't mind having someone else to share the writing experience with. I don't really care about erotic rp ( I don't have experience in the slightest so people might just get dissapointed anyway ) and enjoy nice story.

I stumbled upon this reddit almost by chance, and gave some look around, since while unsure of if I want to try a bit, I'm quite curious of the experience of creating a story, character moments, alongside someone else.

However, I only met negative, or hyper specific RP, while looking around.

Erotic rp

People that seek a specific gender for a rp bud

The requirement of many for quite specific criteria etc...

And just people that don't care about stories and such and just want to do nsfw stuff.

That sure is not the best first impression as someone new. Heck I don't even know how we start a rp or anything but I don't even know if its worth trying.

However, that's quite surface level observation. I can't pretend to know what rp is all about at first or second glance. So, folks who know better :

What is RP, what are the high and low, what can you do with it, is it an hostile environnement or community, and can a newbie have a chance to try it out or should I just, stay away ?