How do you tell someone you don't like them romantically

So like, last year my school had some dumb project and one part of it was a mandatory paired dance, one guy and one girl. And like this guy from my class asked me to dance and I said yes cause he seemed somewhat normal at least. We talked a bit back then and i guess he was kinda flirting sometimes, but I had other shit going on so I never really reciprocated the feelings. We stopped talking once summer started and now out of nowhere after like half a year of no contact he randomly sent me a message saying that he loves me. 

I told him in the text that like I didn't know anything about him and I didn't like him like that, but he was struggling with words so we decided to meet up in real life to talk about it. I told him that I didn't know anything about him and he didn't really know me either and I didn't want him to have some idealized version of me in his head that he fell in love with cause that's not me at all. He backpedaled a lot, saying that he misworded it, but idk how you can misword literally texting me "I love you"?? Either way, he suggested that we should get to know each other, but I told him that I didn't think that was a good idea cause it's going to come with the expectation that I will fall for him. And that I didn't want to lead him on and I honestly thought he understood and then right when I was about to leave he asked me to hang out. and I honestly don't know how to nicely reject him anymore cause I've been pretty clear about it but he just doesn't get it at all.