It’s not the stronger ships you have to worry about, it’s the guy who’s really good at flying a ship you should be able to take easily. Lol
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Being just good enough at baiting may already be a concern.
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baiting seems to be the way to go for newbs, it’s the only way you might catch better player being careless (and solo)
let’s say I’m in low around Tama with my T1 cruiser. what should I do to find a fair fight?
Well, in a cruiser you won’t get a fair fight very likely. You will lose it, but in order to be able to pick the fight, I propose to wait inside a Medium plex … it’s not ideal, because everybody expects a recon bait in a Medium plex, but at least you see what’s coming and can decide (unless it’s a recon ;)).
Other option is to stay a few dozen km from a belt warp-in and see what’s coming after you. Watch for combat probes in this case, as you are not protected by an acc gate.
In general I would start with frigs or T1 destroyers.
EDIT: one idea, hunt the bot Coercers, this can give good practice, but needs a frig or destroyer. Kill as many as you can. 99% of solo Coercers in FW are bots, but they have DPS and evade code.
EDIT2: in case this is important for you, there are no fair fights in EvE, and a saying. If you find yourself in a fair fight, one has done a mistake. 90% of fights in EvE are won before the first shot is fired, by preparation of the fighting ground (e.g. at a stargate or behind an acc gate), by better knowledge (e.g. you know the fit and weakness of your opponent), numbers (you can bring more, better skilled friends). Choosing the right fight and having the high ground is often more important than the actual shooting at each other.
The trick solo is a) to let the opponent believe they have the high ground and engage you (but you know better), or b) surprise attack
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Ok, my last comment about fairness sounded a bit too EvE, but it’s the mind set you have to be prepared for.
In fact there are the good fights, the 1:1 at the sun, the equal fleet brawls, where people clash just because they want to have fun, and don’t care about loss. The smaller and cheaper the ships the less likely people start thinking strategically.
awesome ideas 
if someone combat probes me out at a safe, do they have to warp on top of me or do they get to choose their warp in distance?
i hear you. you know what I meant… a strategy that could turn out well rather than never. i like your thinking, thanks!
If you are staying in free space (not in a deadspace pocket like plexes), they can warp at you at the range of their choosing. So in general you should move at max speed in random direction if you have to rest in a safe because this will screw their warp-in and give you time to react.
As a hunter myself, I hope people are just standing still and I’m going with b) surprise attack at 0 
EDIT: The other way round, I’m sometimes sitting still, and wait prepared if I knew there is a eager hunter I can kill. 
You should move towards a safe bookmark so you can instantly warp to it if what’s landing is not favorable
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This!
Yeah better, if you have a suitable second safe in the system. But the important point is to not align to a celestial or gate/station and go AFK, because this gives the hunter the option to negate your speed by warping at range with second try.
Grab a cheap frigate fo to low sec factional warfare space avoid pirate hubs like tama you ll find some fights after u die 100 times u will get a feel then take it from there.
My advice would be to do PVP in groups as much as possible (to begin with). You will pick up large amounts of information when you work with others: whether it’s a corp, a fleet, or just a few friends you’ve gathered.
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That’s been my recent experience with PvP. Small-gang conflicts have been fun, whether we’re filamenting or going on a roam for targets of opportunity. I’ve found having a competent FC and a forgiving group that doesn’t treat EVE like it’s real world life and death is a lot of fun, and I’ve learned a lot, too.
PvP has grown on me, to the point I actually want to do it even when it’s virtually guaranteed I’m going to die. When you get the right people, set the right expectations, and prepare for it, PvP is fun.
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Echo all the sentiments in the thread. Also, small gang is where its at. It sounds like you may grow to love the tackle role. Either in a t1 frig or inty. You get up close, hold the scram and blap as the rest of your gang gets in range.
I’m still very much a novice, but I enjoy being able to scram/disrupt the target and let my drones chew on the target while the heavier hitters do the real damage. I would like to eventually try other roles as well, just for the breadth of experience. Probably seventy-five percent of the fun I had was because our FC gave pretty competent and clear directions more often than not, because he was training some new-to-the-game newbros at the same time, so there wasn’t a lot of terminology I didn’t understand. Being able to “speak the lingo” definitely helps.
S̶o̶r̶r̶y̶ ̶I̶ ̶a̶m̶ ̶l̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶y̶,̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶e̶v̶e̶r̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶s̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶a̶i̶r̶ ̶f̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶E̶v̶e̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶f̶i̶g̶h̶t̶s̶.̶ ̶W̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶n̶e̶x̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶a̶i̶r̶ ̶f̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶f̶u̶n̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶i̶c̶i̶p̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶l̶a̶u̶g̶h̶t̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶.̶
edit: my reading skills lack today, @Tipa_Riot mentioned that already
One thing that definitely helps is going on roams in a variety of what my corp calls “welp fleets,” as in, “Welp, that was fun even if I lost my ship.” We use cheap ships from a variety of classes, so we might all be in frigates one night, destroyers the next, whatever.
Flying that variety, I’ve started to get a sense of what ships are useful against others, and which ships would just be tasty h’ors douvres for them. I’m nowhere near being able to hear, “We’ve got a Stabber on grid” and know what type of ship to jump into, but I can see myself getting to that point.
My FCs are at that point, so I trust them, and I pay attention to the killmails to see what sorts of modules are commonly fit, why they could work against certain ships and not others, and the applicable skills involved. It gives me a rough idea of what ships I stand a chance against and which ones are just going to eat my lunch.
Best darn thread in a long time. Thanks to the OP and all the replies.