If you don't want to use css, your choices are pretty much the following:
- use unstyled html
- use a component library (although any customization is going to require css)
- use a framework that has utility classes. Again it's hard to imagine never writing a line of css.
Honestly, css is a fundamental web technology. If you want to build for the web you're going to have to learn it
If you make stuff capable of graceful degradation (eg for older browsers) then you can give yourself some space and time for graceful and incremental CSS upgrades!
My CSS vocab is still I think very small (and I've a couple of big chunks coming that I want to understand) but it can be used like a scalpel: tiny uses of it can do good things.
I've been writing HTML since it was a thing (90s).
You try to match the source image using css.
You can even find youtubers who compete. I find it pretty entertaining. It helped me get from being afraid of writing styles to enjoying it.
I don't really see it as boring to begin with honestly. I like building UIs, so I don't think it's boring to learn to build UIs.