In the PUA community, a lot of fuss is made about the concept of cold approaching. Why? Because it has questionable results and is dependent on a lot of circumstances which may not be fulfilled at all times. When cold approaching, you're revealing your cards. You are admitting that you noticed the woman, intentionally targeted her and talked her up in order to gain a certain benefit. (Most likely sex) It's a very risky move and the outcome of the situation may depend on the man's appearance, the girl's mood, location (club setting or daygame, isolated or not) and the general hookup culture in the region. (There's a world outside of the West too)

The reality is, the average looking guy will not have a lot of success cold approaching, unless he's running abundance game to the max and dedicating hours of his day on approaching random women and being thankful that he got one number out of a hundred.

The answer to this problem is subtlety in approaching. Imagine yourself in a public setting, for example, riding the train. You notice a HB that you want to game. If she's far away, slowly and naturally get next to her without ticking off any boxes. When you'r e close, wait until you establish eye contact before talking her up. Comment something. Something happening in the train. Something happening outside of the train. If you're both college students and the terms are getting closer, talk her up on that.

The comment should be neutral and appropriate. A genuine conversation starter. Do not ask her any personal questions or comment her appearance. Imagine her as a random dude you're talking with for the hell of it. You should approach the conversation as a way to kill time, not as a way to gain something.

Once you get the first topic rolling, you should keep the conversation up for a while. Stay light-hearted and half serious, bonus points if you make her laugh.

After that's done, introduce yourself. Now you start with the more personal questions. Her name, her job, her studies, her hometown etc. etc.

You don't want to be lining up question after question, though. Be genuinely interested, or feign interest in her life, try to prolong each topic as much as you can. Keep the conversation light-hearted, but don't compliment her at all. Remember, you're still in the phase where you're not showing any interest and are just talking. You want to stay ambiguous before the time is right.

After 5 minutes of the above mentioned conversation, she should be mostly comfortable and then you turn up the heat.

You do so by negging her a little bit. When negging you only have to keep one thing in mind: Neg her about random, irrelevant shit. Do not neg her based on appearance or character quirks. Ever. Stay light-hearted, tease her a bit and be cool.

Then, when it's time to end the conversation, ask her to give you a number so you can meet up another time. She most likely will.

This type of approach is a lot more meticulous than straight up cold approaching, but carries a much higher rate of success, at least for me. And it only takes up about 10 minutes of your time.