Does your heart really pound when the one you love is near?

It's in the movies, books, television.. A person's heart "races", "pounds faster", "skips a beat" when the one he/she likes/loves is just inches away. I've had a major long-time crush on a classmate, but my heart never showed such "love symptom". I dont know if I really loved him. I thought about him a lot and his opinion always mattered to me. I blush, have a flushed face and become a klutz but never a heart-pounding. Did it ever happen to you? Isnt it just a consequence of being nervous? How does it feel? ..Or does it only exist in the movies-- another romanticized notion??