Clubs and societies - approaching indirect contacts

[inbloomer]

I've always been clear that I prefer meeting people through daily activities, especially clubs and societies, over trying to meet people through apps. I see DNL has a new article up about approaching women in these day-to-day situations, and while I'm not intending to pick over the specifics of the article, there's one particular point around it I want to mention.

Generally in a club or society, there will be a small group of people you're interacting with directly while doing the activity. And in most cases, it's perfectly normal and acceptable to start a friendly conversation with those people - you've just got to not push too hard and fast. However, there is often a wider set of people who you see regularly but don't interact with directly. An example is a sport like track and field, where there are loads of different groups training their own events at overlapping times.

In my experience, approaching people in that wider set is really difficult. Effectively, it becomes a stone-cold approach even though you're seeing them regularly and have this shared interest. Which can be very frustrating, because you know it would be fine if only you were in the same small sub-group.

Does anyone have any thoughts or advice on handling these situations?