I'm going to send you a wall of text, print it off and put it under your seat. If while riding you remember a tip and don't make that mistake then you've learned something.
I feel in part by being shown the basic skills of road riding and being part of the rides where the conversation is about the finer points the information is easier to relate to, understand and remember. We are not talking trail braking, backing it in or wheelies, we stay with the basic top 5 skill's that we see new riders need to have.
No-1- Maintain a comfortable level of focus ( no day dreaming), no death grip on the bar's, keep your arms relaxed, support your weight with your core not your hands. Light but firm grip so you feel the steering input and feed-back without transferring all motion into your neck and head, this increases you endurance by not fatiguing any one part of your body.
No-2-Understand where the corner starts, keep your head up and aim to ride a smooth curve through the whole corner maintaining your lane position as you look where you want to go. Your peripheral vision is what you use to check your lane position.
No-3-In a corner look 2 meters to the inside of the rider in-front of you so you maintain a awareness of the whole corner and your line and not ''use'' the rider in-front as a reference point. If they drive off the road you don't want to follow.
No-4-No braking in corners, set your speed before the corner, ride the first half steady then a little throttle for the second half as you exit. Your tires do 1 thing at a time well, braking to much while leaned over will result in a crash, to much front brake will have the front washing out and toss you in-front of the bike. If the rear brake breaks the rear tire loose the rear of the bike will come around as a low-side also if you let off the rear brake when the back is hung out before the bike is on it's side, the tire can grab and launch you into a deadly high-side.up over top of the bike.
No-5-Don't chase after or push yourself to keep up to anyone, no running red-lights, no cutting off cars to stay with a group, when passing a car wait till you see ''it'' in your mirror then signal, shoulder check and move over. Know where the ride is going so if there is no sweeper you can meet-up at your own pace. A common accident starts with a new rider falling back on a series of corners, then going fast on a straight stretch to catch up, they miss-judge the corner-start and entry speed they try to make a abrupt correction( brake or lean), realize they are in danger, target fixate on a car/rock/ditch/concrete barricade and crash right into the hazard they should avoid.
In closing it is reasonable as a new rider to request 1 person stay with you, if you feel riding alone at night on a curvy road will stress you to a point where your abilities to ride your bike will be affected. If no-one in the group is considerate of you personal safety, you are riding with the wrong people, ride at your own pace so you don't crash or have almost crash's.