A kind of handsome vs. kind of handsome

Sorry for not posting in awhile but I have been busy with other things, awhile back a student of mine said:

My friend is a kind of handsome.

Now in English when you add a the meaning can change quite significantly:

I ate a pizza yesterday (a whole pizza!)

I ate pizza yesterday (some pizza, we don't know how much)

In this case by using "a kind of" it means a type of or a variety of. This tells someone that your friend is not the normal style of handsome but rather that he is an unusual variety of handsome.

Pork is a kind of meat.

meaning 

Pork is one variety of meat.

So a kind of is used to define something or put it into a category.

My friend is kind of handsome.

In this case, kind of is a modifier where you can soften the following word. So it means that her friend is a bit handsome.

It's kind of far.

meaning

It's a little bit far.

So as you can guess in conversation people are much more likely to use kind of than a kind of!

Any questions?

Phil