my eyes are bleeding. I think Dillo may be easier to understand. 
Ok, now that I have bandages over both eyes, let me answer that. 
First, a question: is she insisting that you stay away from any melee for the time being? In other words, range fighter only?
Hopefully not. The easy answer is build a brute, which is sort of a tank, but more aggressive and a little squishier. I found my war mace/willpower brute to be a lot of fun, though I had to slot for strong endurance reduction at first.
scrappers can tank a little, but they are best as melee with damage. I have several. My personal favorites are martial arts/super reflexes and martial arts/shield.
If you are high enough ranked to unlock the epics, some of them have abilities to tank (some of the time), but are more like a swiss army knife, very versatile. That may make a good compromise between what you like and what she wants. NOTE: a potential drawback may be your computer. Some of the epics are effects heavy, so they may not be good for your situation.
If you still want a touch of slugfest, but she's suggesting more range, there's always a blaster acting like a scrapper, a "blapper". Take the energy secondary powerset in blasters, it has punching attacks for those who get too close. Keep in mind this set has built in knockback, so be certain to use some strategy when lining up the shot. Bank the flying opponent off nearby walls so the real tank doesn't have to chase far. Then pick your favorite primary blaster powerset. Fire, for example, is very effective, and when it gets their attention, (notice I said when not if) you have your secondary to push them away.
My favorite blaster is Fire/ice. I use the ice to contain or knock down the enemy while the fire destroys them. For a blaster, its a pretty survivable set. Just don't forget the ice and go all fire on them. You'd quickly learn why ice makes it survivable.
I'd probably not recommend controllers, only for the reason that your computer is probably unable to handle some of the effects well.
Do you want to just get away from being a Tank or melee in general? Like are Brutes, Scrappers and Kheldians too similar?
For the most variety, I'd suggest a Controller. If played right, you can negate alpha strikes and take the lead in teams, ie pave the way and be the first to engage enemies as a tank would, so it'll be sort of familiar. Meanwhile, you'll have the additional responsibility of buffing your team mates and debuffing the enemies. There's quite a lot to do and to keep track of, and each encounter is different especially if you have idiots for team mates. If you want a specific suggestion, I found Plant/Storm to be really fun combo.
Teams are the number one killer of soloists.
So I have ended up with an ice/time troll ill be rollin tommorrow. But want a nice dam dealer to use when the pian of ices low dam bugs me. Alao have an elec/ss tank ill be lvlin once u have a non tank 40+ .
Now for dd char us whare I get confused. Want to aviod,melee archtypes altoghter so no brute/scap/stalker.
Was thinkin a ?/? Blaster or a ?/?(was thinkin dark) corr but idonno,mian,or what would work beter. I accept death goin to be a,major part of early,life and im fine with that. Any ideas?
You can always go Ill/Rad or Fire/Rad controllers. I pretty much play only melee myself and find these 2 combos to be a lot of fun.
The ice/time is my main team lock down enemys to supet slow speeds lol. Mian idea behide the corr or blaster is never played the range/mage class in anygame ever.. So figer I should try atleast once. Or even a mm getin,new comp in about a week. So the week at low lvls wont be yo bad. And I figer mms a good solo char. Thow ether bot/ or thug/
I think you will be surprised at the higher levels what corruptors, controllers and dominators can handle. My first foray into non melee was a fire/rad controller and was one of the fastest solo leveling toons I ever made. /rad was great for pulling large mobs into a tight group then burning them down with fire/ YUM! Target a mob at the back of the group drop a debuff and find a corner to hide behind so they all find you but are debuffed.
Now my current plant/fire (which I swore I'd NEVER make a plant toon - look at me now!) is by far the most fun toon I have played. Plant gives you the ability to make some pretty dumb mistakes and come out alive.
kay so the gf made me go over evert mmo i have ever played adn wright down my mian chars role.. it was tank tank tank tank tank tank.. u get the idea... so she has dared me to make something defrent..
i want something that can live good(usin crap comp atm suffter lag outside mission maps)
does ok dam even if its l8tr lvls thats cool with me
fun.. i dont want a skill by number char. like hit 1,2,3,4 repeat over nad over and over arg..
any ideas i am up for anything realy.