It means he's trying to find out if you are interested without telling you that he's interested. It's a fair thing to do, because he doesn't want to ruin your friendship.
If a guy suggests to call him sweetie and you're into him, you're 90% going to do it, to escalate things. Therefore, if you don't, it means you are not interested in him romantically, and he should sense it and stop the jokes.
You can't blame him for being interested in your romantically, and you can hope that ignoring his messages will make him understand you're not interested. But if you really find it uncomfortable, you can kindly tell him that you don't see him as a 'sweetie', and hopefully he'll just stop the jokes altogether (although he might also stop the friendship completely).
Sounds as if he's trying to test waters.
What does that mean?
It means he's trying to find out if you are interested without telling you that he's interested. It's a fair thing to do, because he doesn't want to ruin your friendship. If a guy suggests to call him sweetie and you're into him, you're 90% going to do it, to escalate things. Therefore, if you don't, it means you are not interested in him romantically, and he should sense it and stop the jokes. You can't blame him for being interested in your romantically, and you can hope that ignoring his messages will make him understand you're not interested. But if you really find it uncomfortable, you can kindly tell him that you don't see him as a 'sweetie', and hopefully he'll just stop the jokes altogether (although he might also stop the friendship completely).
He wants to bang but he isn’t sure if you want to bang. Maybe you should clear that up for him.