I'm a decent cook, likely comes from being in a family where my father is an excellent cook and makes good bread, and my mother bakes. Only issue really is timing things right. That and not having time to cook much most days.
timing is less critical than temperature it seems. most things can be off a few minutes in either direction. cooking in an old oven with a broken thermostat is next to impossible. the oven we got right now is ok, its a no frills unit, but it was actually made in my lifetime (i cant say that about some of the appliances ive used), so the thermostat and timer work great and the heat distribution is fairly good, which is all you really need. one tip for setting time is to set it a couple minutes short of the minimum cook time called for in the recipe. the point of the timer is to get your ass back into the kitchen for the endgame. for things like cookies or brownies a visual inspection is all you need, these are best removed while still soft. for cakes use the toothpick test. and for meat i use my meat thermometer. the timer just gets me to battlestations, so to speak. its done when its done, not when the timer beeps.
Besides being cheaper and healthier the ability to cook impresses the ladies(or whoever your romantic interest is). Really its not that complex, get a cook book, start with some easy stuff, follow the instructions. Eventually you get the hang of it and can improvise on your own and have fun. There are quite a few things you can make on the fly that are simple and delicious. Plus you know what your eating since you made it rather then whatever chemical waste dump used in processed crap.
the internet is my cookbook. if i find a recipe i like, i keep it, tweak it, and save it in a text file, which i fill with useful annotations and variations. a lot of recipes lack some serious detail.
but the thing i like most about doing it yourself and avoiding boxed foods, is you save a ****ton of cash. most of the time its better than anything in a box. **** healthier, better food means you eat more food. couple years ago i was baking cookies like a couple times a week, maintaining a full cookie jar. i had to cut that out cause i was getting fat. i have the same issues during pie season (you know the holidays). id set out to make 2 pies and end up with 6 due to some gross miscalculations. general cooking is a lot healthier though. i learned to make some badass stir fries, which arent too bad if you use fresh produce. but im cheap and i use those bags of stirfry veggies and some chicken/pork/beef/deer/lamb/bear/fish/squirrel/duck/grouse/peoplemeat, and some sauce of my own creation (usually a mad concoction of worcestershire and soy sauces, with some sugar, ginger and 5 kinds of pepper). asian cooking is an accomplishment in its own right. i also make a lot of mexican food cause its cheap.
those of you who cant cook may want to invest in a bbq grill. its really a kind of cooking which is impossible to **** up.
