This. I don't intend to be snarky or demeaning about it when I say that I see the reason most people choose gear is because they like how it sounds (not how faithful it is), but they don't want to EQ because they don't have the necessary skillset or knowledge to do it well instead of trying to be faithful.
I "chose" not to EQ for a long time for this reason. I
knew I didn't know what I was doing and stuck to a Hippocratic first-do-no-harm approach. A few experiences where others greatly improved my recordings with pretty minimal EQ convinced me I needed to learn how to do it myself. I am definitely still no master, but I have been able to improve my recordings substantially through a pretty painless process.
Now learn how frequencies sound. I used to take a low Q value (that gradually grew the higher up I went) and amp something by 10DB and do a gentle sweep so I could hear what 400hz sounds like, what 1k, 2k, 2.6k, etc. Learn these.
This is what I worked on first. I know it sounds kind of stupid, but I downloaded a cheap app that, at the basic level, played a tone and gave you four choices of frequency. A few minutes a day, for a week or two, and I vastly improved my ability to identify frequencies. In the more advanced level, the app would select random snippets of music, play the un-EQ'ed clip, and then play the same clip with EQ applied at some frequency. Again, with four choices. The cool thing here is that you could tell the app which folders to choose the clips from, so you could do it with your own recordings. At the same time...
Play around with simple graphic EQs. I think simple graphic EQs are better for this self-education than more complicated parametric EQs. Regularly bypass the EQ to remind your brain what that sounds like.
...I started playing around with the 10- and 20-band graphic equalizers. Just sliding the various sliders individually, you can quickly get a sense of what content you are likely to find in the different frequency bands. I am still using these for most EQ, because I am still a novice, but also because it's quick and easy, and because I discovered that:
Mild EQ is great! Nobody is suggesting radical moves. Perhaps it's my gear but it's exceedingly rare that I make a recording that isn't improvable by a gentle EQ move or two.
I almost never add/subtract more than a couple dB (assuming there is no specific flaw in the recording that I am trying to address). Less is definitely more. In the same vein, I have often found that a dB bump in one spot and dB decrease in another achieves the goal I am aiming for better than a bigger change in a single band. For example, I have recorded a lot of piano/bass/drum trios where the piano is a bit "submerged". A little EQ up in the mid/low-high bands coupled with a little EQ down in the lower frequencies seems to bring out the piano better than a larger change in either the highs or lows alone.
Anyway, I don't think I really added anything to the conversation (as evidenced by my liberal use of quotes), but I tried to summarize how easy it is to improve your skill-set (as page put it). I am definitely still a beginner, but my skills are improving and I am now working on other mastering tools with a little more confidence. In the end, it's so subjective. I shoot for what sounds good to me on my playback. Anyone else can always tweak it to their own preferences...