How do I stand?

I'm in this religious group for guys (high school/college) and it's pretty chill. We're totally comfortable walking around in underwear and wrestle almost completely naked so it's not a problem of intimacy around these guys. But there are the equivalent of our group in the area (with girls though) and we meet up with them for parties and whatever. Every event is planned and stuff but really everyone's looking for someone to hook up with. It's like this weird undertone of hormones and horniness.

I'm relatively new, so not many girls that I know (all the guys i know though) are present at these 'events'. I've been a long seddit reader and I've hooked up before so establishing kino and escalating has never really been an issue. But most of the time we're just standing around talking with each other, with me not really talking (I like it that way).

It's kinda awkward for me to stand without putting my hands in my pockets (read on here that it's not very good body language and that I should avoid it) so I just kinda clasp them in front of myself. I hold eye contact whenever possible but it's still really weird to just walk up to these girls and say hi. Especially since they're always with their friends (You guys know how impossible it is to talk to a girl when she's with her friends.) So, what do?

How do I stand without putting my hands in my pockets and how do I make contact with these girls without it seeming weird?