If you still play Pokemon Go, you’re probably familiar with this problem. As your level increases, the amount of experience needed goes up exponentially and it is a total grind. Getting to level 40 was a major achievement, but now that the game has increased the cap to 50, the grueling grind has been reintroduced and feels more insurmountable than ever.

Now, I’m level 41. I’m pretty casual and honestly probably wouldn’t have hit level 40 if it weren’t for those friendship experience boosts. Combined with lucky eggs, those boosts can make a world of difference in your leveling, but with people trying to capitalize on it, I’m finding myself in more gift stand-offs than ever before.

In case you didn’t know, lucky egg boosts also apply to friendship levels and this is major, especially when you’re hitting those best friend and ultra friend levels. If you know these people and have a way to contact them, you can coordinate gift-opening so that both of you get the boost, but if your friends are people you can’t communicate with otherwise, you’ll probably find your friend list littered with these:

Stand-offs. Both of you refusing the open the gift because that means you give the other person the power to take advantage of the lucky egg boost. Your best bet? Pop a lucky egg every time you sign in and hope you beat the level up notification so you can get the boost too. Sure, 100k experience would be great, but if you need 7.5 million to hit the next level, giving up the extra 100k is hard to do. It’s a lot of work to get 100k organically in the game, even with a lucky egg boost. No one who knows this trick is going to want to give it up.

So, what’s the solution? I don’t know. A way to communicate with your friends through the app would be the easiest fix. It’d make it easier to coordinate raids, especially with the introduction of remote raids (so you’re not wasting your 5 invites on people who won’t even sign in), and it could help address the friendship leveling issue. But, it’s also another chat to deal with and who knows what ways this might turn into a new sort of problem.

Could there be a way to level your friendship based off your own actions that are not dependent on what the other person does? I mean, that would also be strange because you could have an ultra level friendship with someone who only has you at a good friend level.

I really don’t have a solution. I just wanted to talk about this annoyance that I am sure is plaguing a lot of players. Is there a more viable workaround? Am I doomed to have a friends list filled with friendships teetering on the brink of ultra or best friend status?