Does the phrase to grow to like imply that one had not liked it before he started liking it. As in the expression:
I grew to like jogging.
Learn English – Does “to grow to like” imply previous dislike
meaning-in-context
Related Solutions
It is impossible to answer this definitely without knowing a great deal more about the relationship between you and your interlocutor, but this may be what happened here:
You addressed him with a statement which is ordinarily used by children (and quite young children, at that) to adults they admire. In effect, you adopted the role of a child.
He took this to be intended as a jest, and “played up” to your initiative by assuming the role you assigned him: he responded as an adult (and a particularly elderly adult) would to a child, employing an indulgent and perhaps patronizing tone and the stock language of a stock 1930s or 1940s grandfather.
The word whippersnapper is particularly dated; I cannot believe it has been used otherwise than ironically since the early 1960s. I think for most Americans my age it is indelibly associated with Walter Brennan, the character actor who played the cranky but good-hearted Grampa Amos McCoy on the television program The Real McCoys (1957-63).
—Google Ngrams (which doesn't handle hyphenated words well, so I've used the unhyphenated spelling)
Best Answer
Strictly speaking, it implies indifference or unawareness; I would not expect an active dislike unless it were specifically mentioned, or unless the subject matter is widely understood to be unpleasant.