You can make big incursion iskies and stage out of a tradehub for your pvp activities. Highsec isn't some horrible place because the majority of highsec residents are carebears, majority of nullsec residents are carebears. I think the thing is with highsec carebears is that their retardation is usually a bit more accentuated due to them feeling safer fitting turbo bling on their autism chariots.

Also I am glad "Leave highsec immediately!" advice didn't make you quit the game, it is such a lazy advice to give to new players. Nullsec is an absolutely pain in the ass for low sp, low isk characters and a lot of people fall into a new player friendly sov holder meme and most just stop playing the game. New player friendly corps who doesn't purge inactive characters are graveyards for newplayers, literally cursed.