Talking about time and distance, yeah, it's like being right in the middle of a desert, days away from anyone. It's basically you and your thoughts. Unless someone decides to say 'hi' in a way the government wouldn't be able to cover up, we'll never know for sure.
If light speed really is a limiting factor and no warp crap, then a you need a very powerful long-lived society working very long term. You turn things like pulsars or gamma ray bursts into beacons and wait for someone else like you to answer in the same way. But this assumes the thing out there that keeps eating your physical probes doesn’t come in when it notices you.
Freegards