Could an internet relationship work, strange behaviour of a friend. (related)

[psy_guy]

Hi. One of my closer friends (a classmate too) has found a girl in the internet. It is first time for him to meet a girl on the internet and actually meet a girl. (at least he says so...) He is 19 years old and never had a girl yet, not even a hug from a girl. He is very... closed up. To know him, it takes time for him to know he can trust you.
I asked him today, why wasn't he sleeping yesterday at 2AM. He is friends with that girl (who is 15 only) for a little bit more than a month. He chats with her every single day, sometimes for hours. We are playing an online game, he is writing a lot and playing in a window sometimes, I never asked him why, since he's got some fancy half life game server and he usually chats a lot naturally... So back to the point with a relation to the last statement: she plays in his server. That's how they met. She asked his contacts and she started to talk to him on MSN. He is so... not himself for about 2 weeks now. He was unhappy, rational, interesting to talk to... Now he isn't that interesting, he is smiling sometimes, thinking about her all the time (I assume so, since he's not paying attention to what teacher says) and he isn't that interesting to talk to. He's day-dreaming.
I'm concerned about him, he was an interesting guy and now he's a dreamer. That isn't good. Of course I think he should be happy, but happiness shouldn't come with consequences to his grades and relationship with his friends. reputation amongst teachers at school. And another problem is that he doesn't accept direct help from others. He only accepts advices on how to help himself. I have no idea how he could help himself. I tried talking to him that it's internet, they haven't met yet, she's very young, saying that there's a lot of girls around in the school, etc., didn't work, and I'm usually are good at convincing people to do something.
I've been at his home today, she wrote him, he was all happy, smiling, not even paying attention to me. I asked him for a sandwich to see how he reacts, he just told me to go and make one myself, which has never happened before. He doesn't let others to do things at his home without his supervision.

Facts that might help you help me help him help himself:
He is day-dreaming.
It affects his grades.
It affects his relationship with his friends.
It affects his thinking.
He doesn't sleep at night for 1-2 extra hours just to be able to talk to her.
He used to never only chat, now he does and even can do it for hours. With one person.
He's never met her.
She's 15, he's 19.
He says that they tell everything to each other.
He wants to meet her.
He never had any contact with a girl, even a simple hug.
He is very distracted.
He is paranoically look at his MSN icon to check if there is a messenge. Even when playing full screen games, he gets them down every minute in case she wrote something.
He is feeling that sick feeling in his stomach when he thinks about her or chats with her. (is it really true that you can feel it all the time when chatting for hours? Never heard of such a case...)

So the question is... How can I help him help himself to be a normal human being who is able not to ruin his life because of that? I know it's his business, but still, he is one of my closest friends, I don't want him to ruin his life... (not dramatizing here, his grades went from 8-10 to 4-5 for current 3 test we were writing...)

[MJAlex]

I kind of understand where your friend is coming from, and it's hard to know exactly what to do. He's in that inbetween state now, because he hasn't met the girl, but is very emotionally attached to her. He is happy though, and that's the good that comes out of it. One thing you can do is just ask to hang out with him. Do something after school, and just chat, bring up interesting topics and see what he comes up with. He's open with the girl, so you know he can be open, its just a matter of opening him up to other people again, and getting his mind off of this girl can help with that. As for the grades, that may be hard to change, because with little motivation, it's hard to see what could can come out of something. But start with trying to sapend more outside time with him to open him up to you, and distract him from what else he's dealing with. Try to get him to open up to you, and hopefully that's the first step to getting him more interesting and aware of his surroundings again. Hope this helps!