Pet names in a casual relationship?

Anonymous
I've been in a casual relationship for the past 3 months now and I'm trying to gauge where we are. For the first 2 months we did a lot of hooking up and a lot of talking. I felt like we got to know each other. For the past month these haven't been going very well for him as far as his career and I've tried to be there to comfort him. He's said to me one time that at the VERY LEAST I an his friend. Since then we've started calling each other pet names like babe (for him) and darling (for me).

I know that this does not mean that we're in a real relationship now. I'm trying to figure out if this is a good time to start at least hinting at starting a real one.
Updates
+1 y
As I said down below...
I tried to do it on Friday just by asking "do you only see us as a casual relationship " and it did not go so well. I picked the WRONG time to bring it up and got shot down. I ended up saying sorry about bringing it up at the wrong time. I have every intentions on doing it again at a better time. While i was saying sorry about bringing it up at the wrong time he was STILL calling me darling. "It's fine darling. such is life", he said.

He's even call me "dear"...
Pet names in a casual relationship?
2 Opinion