If it's any consolation, I'm pretty new to all this lark too so that makes my comments less valid than most of the experts' but conversely, it does mean I can sympathise with (and remember) your own position!
This place is friendly - stick some photos up in the General or Photos for Pleasure section if you want more gentle feedback. To be honest, the most rabid responses tend to be in quite particular subforums
The mistake I nearly made when starting was thinking if I bought another lens it would improve my photography. In actual fact, it would just have confused me (but maybe I'm just daft). I stuck with a single 50mm for a fair while, which meant I was just mucking around with exposure triangle and composition. "Zooming" was done by getting closer or further away from the subject. And in fact, it made me think a lot more carefully about composition. Whereas changing focal length adds a very significant new variable into that equation: as a mathematician I can say that changing focal length and the impact on the appearance of perspective is not a simple "linear" relationship and it's quite hard to appreciate the full impact at first...
A lens is as good as the photos you take with it. That's why us beginners often do well to stick with relatively cheap kit lenses. If we fall out of love with out new hobby, it won't have broken the bank. Our photography is almost always going to be limited by our technical and compositional limitations, rather than our kit, so there's a lot of temporarily wasted investment in buying an expensive piece of glass as a beginner. Sure, you'll "grow into it" as they say, but the return on your additional investment (over and above a cheaper lens) is likely to be pretty minimal for a long time. Of course, we all like nice shiny - and fancy - kit...
With one exception, my glass is all cheap. I have a single very nice zoom lens and apart from that it's kit stuff (50mm/1.8, 35mm/2.4, 18-55 cheapo zoom) and a mid-range wide-angle. I did make the mistake the other way and buy a £15 rubbish sigma telephoto zoom. It's about as sharp as the rubber in my drawer and frankly a waste of £15. But all the rest have been great value... but not what I'd really recommend at the very beginning as there's just too much choice and too many decisions to be made before you even put your eye to the viewfinder.
Sorry if you're way ahead of my blind guess re: your level of expertise - I'm not meaning to offend in any way.
Also, if you have cash to spare and want to spend it then that's you perogative! I could have stuck with maybe 2 or 3 lenses even now and still achieved 95% of the shots I've taken. And the 5% I would have missed... well, they wouldn't really have been missed
Having said all of that, one thing I don't regret buying was a my nice piece of glass. It is on my camera about 60% of the time and is just lovely. Would I have wanted to pay £1000 for it? No. Was it worth the £300 I paid for it... I think so. If you can pick up a bargain then great, but you need to know what you will be shooting to know whether a lens is ever going to be a bargain. Picking up a half price supertelephoto when you don't have any interest in sports or wildlife might still be a waste of quite a lot of money...
Anyway, I'm not sure if any of that helps but good luck and don't ever be afraid to stick your photos up here. And enjoy!