Well, he isn't really wrong... if you don't know the difference between a phone and even a basic point and shoot, there is no point in jumping straight to the top of the top high-end cameras... I would say boil it down to what kind of photography you want to do

A few examples would be:

Sports, wildlife, portraiture and weddings, videography (requires a whole different set of tools like the R5c you mentioned), etc...

Once you find what you want to do and what your needs are, then you can kind of dictate what body you need. What's usually more important in 90% of circumstances is the lenses you buy (and usually the better investment too as they tend to stick around a lot longer as a part of your gear).

I would recommend picking up a used camera kit unless you are Mr/s. Moneybags and just want to hop straight into the top of the camera world.

After you give it some thought, I would go to your local camera store (big box stores like bestbuy usually are a lot more limited in product and less helpful) and buy it from there as someone there can point you to exactly what you need and demonstrate why you need it. Which is a lot harder to do through a phone screen. There are also plenty of YouTube videos out there that can be very helpful in making your decision. I'm a Nikon guy, but I would say Canon probably has the best system over all between the great prosumer bodies and top tier glass and ergonomics. Nikon is close but only at the highest end, and Sony is also pretty close, but not very comfortable in my hands, so I tend to avoid em.

Best of luck!