This is based on a misconception anyhow. It assumes we will find it far away. When the reality is they are right here now and have been for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years.
Perhaps our idea of intelligent life doesn’t seem intelligent to other intelligent beings. When you consider the state of our world with it’s senseless wars, mass murders by governments, governments pillaging’s of it own citizens and other horrors. Truly intelligent beings would not trust us nor would want anything to do with us other than to keep an eye on us to keep us at arms distance.