Thank you so much for writing this.

My partner and I both believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life, but she often asks: “Why haven’t we been visited yet?” When I insist that we have, her inevitable retort is: “But why haven’t they shown themselves? Why would they be hiding from us?”

I intuitively gleaned what you have proposed here, but have always explained it far less articulately.

An excellent encapsulation of our current status in the universe.