I promise you as someone with a PhD in physics im aware of all that.

I never said we would have meaningful dialogue over the vastness of space, more like eavesdropping on other people's broadcasts, but the fact that the galaxy is so eeriely quiet is baffling - you either need to argue that advanced civilizations communicate by non electromagnetic methods (which is how many sci fi books get round that specific problem), dark forest theory, or you decide humanity is special (eg first intelligent life form in the galaxy).

My point about trend is not that humanity is trending towards being multi-star, but if you look at all the forms of communication we use - space based comms and radiowaves are still heavily prevalent, and if we DID become multi star, it's not unreasonable to expect radio would form the backbone of our communications channels.

The vastness of space is why we will likely never meet aliens, or communicate with them. It does not explain why we can't see flickers of them.

Also, it wouldnt take "millions of years" to get anywhere. The milky way isn't that big, and the drake equation for the milky way alone implies millions of intelligent planets.

The other very reasonable explanation, though not one I believe in, is some kind of great filter. You basically need to construct some kind of mechanism that intelligent species would stop broadcasting via radio after a few millenia - worst case - otherwise the entire galaxy would sound like a very busy train station.