Why did he send this response?

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I am in a hobby group and there is man there who is friendly and helpful. He is also friendly and helpful to me and has given me training tips. I have very much appreciated his support. We have become quite friendly at the hobby group, and usually chat, though we can go weeks or even months without seeing each other. I've chatted to him about causes I campaign on and joked about how I am ranting on about it to him. So a casual, situational friendliness.

At the weekend I did an event he had played a small part in organising. He texted me before the event to wish me luck and said it was very muddy. After the event I sent him a photo of my mud covered shoes and lower legs (in trousers) and commented that it had indeed been muddy.
He texted back, ' You meet a woman, she seems nice, if a bit ranty, and next thing you know, she's sending you photos of her body parts'
I replied, ' That made me laugh!'
'However, I 'm a bit confused. You say 'ranty' like that's a bad thing.'
He replied, ' Calm down dear.'

Literary text criticism of this exchange is welcomed!

(I would have thought that based on knowledge of me and previous conversations it was clear I was sending myself up with my comment on being ranty, as in ' Ha ha ha, what's wrong with being ranty? ha ha' type thing. But it doesn't look like he took it like this?)

I also didn't interpret your reply as a joke, rather a criticism.
However a laughing emoji after his last comment should suffice to sort the situation.

Oh god don't text him AGAIN about a nothing burger. That would be very intense, just let it alone and carry on as normal when you next see him.

No he wasnt. Referring to muddy booted legs on trousers as "body parts" was clearly him being purposely ridiculous.........it's called humour.

Yes do this.
I suspect he is testing the waters for a romantic approach. You message again and the whole thing starts off again, unless of course you would like him to be more than a friend.
An emoji signals that you understand it's a joke and it's the end of this particular discussion.

Tone can be impossible to interpret on a text. If it's in any way ambiguous I usually include a laughing emoji at the end so it's clearer that I'm laughing about something. My guess is he only used the phrase "a bit ranty" because you'd already used it in conversation to describe yourself.

I wonder if he was trying to be a bit flirty with the 'body parts' comment. I'd have ignored the ranty comment personally and replied something along the lines of "don't worry, no chance of me ever doing that " in reference to the body parts bit.

Well I did send him a brief text him just to clarify things and I am glad I did. He has replied, ' No I took your message in the spirit it was intended, hence my sexist/patriarchal reply 😀'

Well, I am glad that is sorted!

Thanks everyone for your replies and advice.

You sound like hard work OP

Right back atcha!

I’m not posting about misunderstanding “jokes” tho am I.

But you are invested enough to post not one, but two posts on a thread you appear to think is ridiculous yet are motivated enough to post what you fondly imagine is a cutting put down ( top tip - loses its impact when you deliver attempted put downs through stale MN cliche-phrases).

All this does rather suggest that your personality is not the easiest work 😁

You are way overthinking this. It's nothing

It is now, its sorted! Thanks to being able to chat it through with the helpful women of MN.

On the contrary, but then you don’t know me. You’re coming across as a humourless bully. I’ll leave it there (but I doubt you will).

Oh dear. You really don't like being called out on your behaviour, do you?