Microservices scaling: independent vs coordinated deployment strategies

everyone preaches independent microservice scaling, and i get it in theory. but in practice, at least for us, it rarely feels truly independent. if our api gateway sees a spike, we almost always have to scale our auth service and our core user service right along with it, even if their individual load metrics aren't screaming red yet. it's like a coordinated dance, and if one component isn't scaled, the whole thing chokes. this sometimes feels like an anti-pattern to the whole microservices philosophy, where the ideal is that you can scale each piece completely separately. is coordinated scaling just the practical reality for a lot of core services? or are there specific architectural patterns that truly enable independent scaling without these tight interdependencies? i'm trying to figure out if we're doing something wrong or if this is just how it is when you have high-traffic, interconnected services.