Ever since Match.com bought OkCupid, OkCupid has been essentially crippled, and they have done everything they could to make it lose appeal.
The journals are gone. Features that used to be free cost money (and rather insane amounts). They hide more attractive users from less attractive users, and through a long history of observation of the de-evolution of this site, I sense their Pay2Win approach introduces all kinds of noise into the matching system.
By the way the matching system is crap anyway, because there are a ton of users who give answer a) and then in the comment condition it so turns out they actually should've given answer b). Because they think the computer reads their essays instead of their binary response.
The site used to be a lot more alive than it is now.
Meetup.com is probably the healthiest way to find someone at this point... there's no pressure of dating or even 1-on-1 restricted contact. You're in a group, and if you catch each other's eye... great.