I am a firm believer that there is a plethora of life in the universe and many have evolved intelligent life (although their rise/fall might not match ours).
That said, I am also a firm believer that Einstein's theory of relativity and space/time restrictions are so correct AND restrictive that interstellar space travel is all but impossible. Sure, we can hypothesize about a million "tricks" and sub-atomic ideas to somehow achieve travel close to or exceeding the speed of light, but I don't think any of those are really possible.
Thus, despite all the life and intelligent civilizations around our galaxy and the universe, we are all pretty much isolated by the shear magnitude and distance between us.
We do not get visited. We are not being watched. The time it takes even SOME information from our planet to reach anywhere with intelligent life is literally hundreds if not thousands of years. And human civilization is but a blip (10,000 years) in a universe history that is billions of years long.
I am sure that we will eventually "hear" or "see" something that can only be explained by intelligent life on other planets, but even when we do, that information will be millions of years old and there will be no way to "send back" any type of acknowledgement or communication.
The distances are just too inconceivable. And every idea to "get around" these barriers is just far-fetched science in my opinion. Sure, it makes great science fiction. But physics doesn't change just because it would make a great story. The barriers of time, speed and distance and how they ACTUALLY work together, in the real world, are just impossible to overcome.
If we don't destroy ourselves first, I certainly think most of our solar system will be touched by human interactions, but traveling to another solar system light years away? Almost impossible. Traveling to a solar system with planets with life? No way.