The reason humanity hasn’t found any intelligent life other than its own is that long, long ago…every other intelligent species in the galaxy left, but man. Stubborn man.
Basically it starts off as an end of the galaxy (or universe) story. For whatever reason every species is “moving on”. You think it’s a story about how one faces the end with dignity, but the real story is why Man is alone in the galaxy (or universe). Man refuses to give up and ultimately is left alone.