get stepped on, nerd

+rep you are the fourth person ive seen having kenny as their username

hey buddy, whenever u are free, consider accepting my friend request, id like to talk to you!

men

two other tips:

-if you're about to get splashed, jump before getting splashed and fly around. it's called surfing. airborne makes you harder to hit as rockets are slower projectiles than average.
-a rocket jumping soldier looks threatening, but he also can't juke hitscan or fast projectiles as well. get used to shooting people airborne with such weapons.

tl;dr it's a mindset where you maneuver around the map, keeping a relative position good enough to dodge rockets and their aoe more easily.

i too struggle with it at first, but then it clicked and i loved it. hope it'll click for you as well.

throwing the tips here since i don't really want to argue about it either.

-most unintuitive fact about tf2 soldier's counterplay is: don't get in his face. you can't dodge there. instead, maintain a minimal distance so you have time to evade splash. you can try cqc but as a high risk high reward approach, or for opportunities like the soldier being out of rocket, etc.
-do not limit yourself to an even ground, let alone low ground. take the high ground when against a soldier.