Don't get into a sweat about your first purchase. It doesn't matter what you get, or how good it is, you will want something different later. Get used to it.

Start with something good enough to allow you to progress, but laying out almost a thousand bucks for your first guitar is not a good plan.

Poke around in the used racks od as many music shops as you can get to. Pick up guitars and get to know what they feel like. Even before you know how to play, you will have some ideas about how heavy it should be, how it should fit against your body, how far you should have to reach to fret the strings or strum them.

Get someone to show you a couple of simple chords. Learn how to stroke the strings instead of chopping across them. You can quickly learn to notice the differences in response you get from different guitars. Your first instrument should be an acoustic, or maybe a hollow-body electric. Find one you think you can get along with for a while, and take it home.

Don't start with a solid-body guitar. Don't get an amp until you've been playing for long enough to get a solid grasp of the basic techniques. Amplification adds another bunch of things to fuss around with and is guaranteed to distract you. That's why I recommend getting an acoustic to start.