If you mean the Buddies system, then no, I don't believe it sends a friend request or anything.
Adding someone as a buddy is completely private. You can add someone as a buddy, but they won't really know that you've added them and you won't show up in their buddy list unless they add you as well. It's less of a friend request and more of a way to just keep a list of people you want to keep track of, I suppose.
Hopefully this clears it up ^^ The buddy system isn't used much around here, so I don't know too much about it outside of my experience.