"Hearing" people poke fun at you

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Sometimes when I'm out somewhere like a shopping mall, and people are talking all around me, I think that I hear tactless remarks about me or aimed at me.
A couple months ago I had a cold, and I was walking along a busy high street. There was a group of lads waiting at a bus stop, could be aged anywhere between 17 and 25, and I'm sure I heard one of them say "man flu!" as I walked by. I thought for a moment, and tried to rationalise my thoughts. I didn't look like I had a cold on the outside, as it was a subtle sort of cold (it was actually a mild cold so I didn't look like I had a cold, and I wasn't holding a tissue or anything to make it obvious). So I had to tell myself that he probably said a word that sounded like "man flu", or he might have said "man flu" to one of his mates, as maybe one of them had a cold too or something.

Is there a term for this type of thing, where you imagine hearing inappropriate or tactless comments being said about you when in actual fact they were most probably saying something completely different and not even noticed you? Does anyone else have this?

I had to look up the phrase "man flu" on Google:

"Man flu is a pejorative phrase that refers to the idea that men, when they have a cold, exaggerate and claim they have the flu. Whilst a commonly used phrase in the UK and Ireland, it is referred to in other cultures and there is a continuing discussion over the scientific basis for the phrase."

So my guess is that the comment was not directed at you. The flu has been going around everywhere this year, so it's likely that someone in the group that you passed by had the flu, and they were probably joking about somebody in the group.

If it was directed at you, it was a very poor and stupid attempt at being mean. So I would disregard it.

yes sometimes at school I can relate to the same thing. when i hear people say she this or she that i always assume its always about me and it drives me insane...

Yes, there is a term for this: "hostile attribution bias".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_attribution_bias

There was a time when I was self concious about a particular facial feature, so if I heard anybody around me say the name of it I would assume they were pointing me out for ridicule. There was one or two times when it did happen for real which is what made me hypersensitive to it, I felt that any random person on the street would behave the same way so I was walking around feeling anxious.

It's better to address the root cause of the issue, by accepting that I look the way I do, I can walk around worry free. Do you think you look somewhat masculine or did someone say that to you once? It's possible that could be the root of your anxiety, because I am inclined to believe the man flu comment was not directed at you.

Man flu is a British slang to call people who act like they're dying when they only have a slight cold, but these days people seem to be calling a cold 'man flu' whether the person is unwell with it or not. It has nothing to do with what gender you are. I don't look masculine anyway, but because I thought I heard them say "man flu!" as I was walking past, and I did have a cold, I immediately assumed they were aiming it at me. But in reality, they probably didn't even see me or notice me.
There's about a million people that live or come to the city I live in, so the streets are often crowded with all sorts of different people, so it is next to impossible to stand out if you tried. There are homeless people living on the streets, weird druggies and chavs, lots of foreign people and muslims, and also a lot of snobby people too, so you get a mixture of all sorts of groups. I try to tell myself that fact, but it still doesn't stop me feeling self-conscious and worried that everybody is against me.

This seems familiar. I noticed that I feel more like people criticize me when I have a lot of other stress, and that correlation makes me disregard the apparent perception and process it as information about my own state of mind.

Recently I hear my name a lot when I walk around in public but I don't think anyone is actually saying it.

Yes, this is a very common cognitive distortion referred to as personalization. I used to have a lot of problems with it, particularly whenever my anxiety was up pretty high, bordering on panic attacks. CBT group therapy really helped, and continuously reassuring myself that the odds of what was said actually being about me are miniscule. It can be easy to mislead ourselves this way if we're particularly caught up in our own state of being at the time, as anxiety was doing to me.

Sticks and stones will break my bones.
But names will never hurt me.

I ignore nasty people, making fun of others in a nasty way & insinuation are a sign of low selfesteem & passive agression.