The „what are we to each other“ phase. Granted, that’s probably more of an issue for me than most others because I‘m poly / non-monogamous, so the expectation that intense flirting leads to more often isn’t there.
I‘ve been in so many situations where both sides were unsure how far the other side wants to go. Do I just kiss them? Do I ask for a kiss? Do I call them my partner? Would openly asking scare them away? Do I fuck up by not doing any of that? Sometimes it feels like two teenagers in a romance story who are very much into each other but too scared to do anything about it.
In one case it has been going for years. We flirt a lot, we hug and cuddle and for a while we kissed every time we met. Then I said „I love you“ and they got scared that those words come with expectations. We talked about it but no more kisses so far.
From what I remember, most of them were not. At least in the early days, Pokéstops used the same locations as the portals in Niantic‘s earlier game Ingress. Those in turn could be requested by high level players and approved by the devs. If someone was playing Ingress on the island or if someone requested it as a joke, we might never know.