I’ve been playing “D&D” since I was little. We first got into it when I was 8 or 9. I’m sure you would have zero difficulty getting into it today if you keep in mind some things.
Why the quotes around D&D?
My first tip is related to this. We didn’t really know the rules. As little kids, we weren’t prepared to study or do math, but we had a blast anyway.
Today this is called things like “house rules”. D&D is very malleable, the rules even say so.
Even today I use an abbreviated rule set with newbies.
Next, given at the time pop culture was trying to scare us AWAY from D&D, there was very little “out there” to tell us if we were playing correctly. There was no voice actor heavy popular streaming show to make us think we had to be good at accents.
Back in the day we just had the “red box”, and even then it was on loan. You don’t need to buy a bunch of stuff.
Lastly, you can play online now. You don’t have to find friends locally.