Hi, I'm a senior in high school, and one of my friends at school (male 17 or 18 ), has been acting EXTREMELY strangely lately. He has been acting slow and depressed for a little over a week now. He has also told me briefly that he has been feeling unhappy with his personality and that he doesn't like himself. Things that he used to enjoy or things that I would have thought he'd find amusing don't have any effect on him. Yesterday, he wasn't at school. I asked him today if he was okay, and he said that he was just tired and he admitted that yesterday he didn't come to school because he didn't feel like getting out of bed so he just slept all day. This isn't at all like him, and he's not usually a "slacker-I-don't-want-to-go-to-school" type. He's usually very reliable, studious and productive. He's also a very self-reflective, "melancholic" personality, and it worries me.

I don't know what I should do, because not only do I question what is wrong with him, but I don't know how to approach him about it tactfully. If I ask him if he's okay again and press the subject does that threaten his masculinity or something? I'm a girl, so I have no idea how guys work.

Any thoughts?