How do I friend somebody with the follow feature turned on?

[Abby]

There's somebody on Facebook that I know who has the follow feature turned on and there's no option for me to send her an actual friend request, there's just the follow button. Is there a way I can send her a friend request or does she have to be the one to friend me first?

[John Smith]

You can just follow her for the time being. She will b notified that you follow her. People become a follow when the actual friend request was sent. If you accept it, you become friends, if you reject it, they remain a follower. Since you did not have followers enabled, they cannot be changed to a follower.
The only way you could do this is to accept the friend request and then to remove them as a friend, which will drop them down to a follower.