So my answer to the Fermi Paradox is that even if sapience is a common evolutionary choice, it's entirely possible and even likely that we are either the only or one of the only civilizations in our own galaxy.

Not to mention the enormous time frames we're discussing. Humans have only been around for a tiny blip in Earth's history. It's depressingly possible that the nearest species willing to communicate has already died out or gone somewhere else or anyway stopped transmitting - and that we'll do the same before the next one pops up.