I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were other living beings in the universe.
Our chances of ever having a get together are remarkably slim, though.
For starters, unless there was an alien race very close nearby (like in this solar system) I don’t see any reason why they’d fly by this marble. Or even head in its direction. To get here would be an amazing act of luck and coincidence. Unless they had some kind of telescope (radio, light, whatever) that could see that the Earth had land and water and, maybe (unlikely), plant life it would still take a very long time to get here. Of course, if they were using light to even see the planet then what they were seeing would be way different than what it would be by the time they got here. For all we know, aliens took a look at the planet and saw a bunch of volcanos and poisonous atmosphere and decided to pass on taking a closer look. Unless they had light speed travel. Maybe.
But time and distance is a huge factor in something like this. For instance, if we evolved at slightly different rates or the same rate but different starting points, that would make a huge gap. If a race started evolving even 100 years after we did, they’d be getting to the point of listening to radio and being afraid to drive a car at speeds in excess of 25MPH. Not quite enough to find us. If they started 100 years before us they may have been looking for radio signals that they’d never get and move onto another section of space.
Even if we were essentially on par right at this moment there are other things to consider. Do they even have an interest in the rest of the universe? Do they bother to listen to radio signals from space? Do they even have radio? Would they recognize an “intelligent” broadcast if they saw it? Would we? If something was coming from a totally alien species what may be logical for them could be quite confusing to us.
So, short answer to “Are we along in the universe?”: No, I don’t think so (unless we really live in a Red Dwarf universe)
Chances of meeting another being: Really, really, really, slim.