I'm always worried when making .tars that I'm doing something wrong when the file also has a . file inside.
I know this is probably nothing but it makes me think of something like this.
Yes, it seems Elementary is focussing a lot on delivering an Apple-esque experience.
Some prefer that. But there's also ones that look more like Windows. Or there are blends. And you can always modify one thing or an other if you feel like you've become more accustomed with your distribution of choice.
I'm a little late to the party but I'm using Ubuntu myself. There are a handfull that are pretty good for starters. Ubuntu and Linux Mint are probably part of those. And I see others have given you some advice on good ones as well.
I would suggest to not just jump off the deep end but maybe make it a dual boot or install it on a spare computer. It's probably also usefull to make like a list of applications you're using in Windows and see if they're available on Linux. And if not, what alternatives there are.
It helps if you are willing to try some alternatives to your daily applications when they are not available in Linux. But worst case scenario there are a lot of Windows applications that can run inside Wine in Linux.
I'm always worried when making .tars that I'm doing something wrong when the file also has a . file inside. I know this is probably nothing but it makes me think of something like this.