You can always stick to single player to avoid the unknown that online play brings. That said If you want to go online stay away from the Official servers, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Personally I would try to find a "noob friendly" unofficial server by checking the many server listing websites. You'll also want one that has Active Moderators or things get out of hand fast. A side note, noob friendly servers can often be exactly the opposite as trolls look for that server tag and join those servers to hunt players. This is where active mods come in the keep things running smooth. Servers that have their own separate websites with additional rules are often great communities.
The last, and what may be the best option in my opinion, would be to host your own if you have a spare PC laying around. It would need to have 8GB of ram and atleast a quadcore processor. Setting up your own server is quite easy and would allow y'all to play together without outside interference. Here is a link to a ark server manager that I personally use.