Jani

Focus your attention on your breath, hearing, feeling sensations. "think about the sensations i'm feeling? " Your mind will throw distractions at you, thinking will happen and it's ok, but don't hang onto it. Let the thought of the sensation arise and let it go. Treat the thoughts as any other movement, they come and they go, and soon they will calm down.

You just listen to them and stop following the mind activity which dictates what you're going to say next, it's the best thing you can give to the other person, your full attention. They will appreciate it. You can feel it when someone's lost in their own thoughts while you're talking to them and just waiting for their turn to say whatever, and it doesn't feel that good at all but it's really normal in everyday life. But then again when someone intensively listens to you and gives you all of their attention, you feel it and you appreciate it and when you're experiencing those feelings it's easier for it to become felt both ways.

Yes. I'd also guess that it would require some open mindedness from the other person to get it as a hint of his unconscious behavior rather than just me trying to annoy him, right?

I would go with self-inquiry and meditation, the effects of those practices will also extend to every area of your life. There's some good videos about self-inquiry and meditation on Leo's channel. When you start to get a better grasp on what thought is, you will stop treating them with so much respect. Those thoughts should be treated like any other movement as some spiritual teacher said. The videos will give you further insight hope this helps.

When I walk home with a friend of mine from school, our walks have gradually become more awkward, or more like silent. I don't talk much and when there's pauses of silence, he gets sort of uncomfortable and will do everything to come up with something to talk about. Most of the talk we used to have was complaining and criticizing something or someone so when there's not much of that anymore, there's A LOT silence. It's just absurd how much of our conversations in life are about complaining, criticizing, gossiping and so on. When you drop that completely out and just become aware of how much it is happening around you, you might appear as a bit more silent and awkward to talk to.

Don't engage in all the complaining and criticizing, that helps a lot.