Have we failed to contact, or be contacted, by extraterristrial intelligence because we may be one of the first?

Somebody has to have taken the first steps and there are still billions and billions of years for the rest of the universe to catch up.

Could Earth, and countless planets like ours, simply be at the point in their socio/technological evolution that we are all at the forefront of colonizing the Universe?

If this were true what would it mean in terms of understanding how the Universe evolves as a whole?