Two classic questions - the Erdos distinct distance problem, which asks about the least number of distinct distances determined by points in the plane, and its continuous analog, the Falconer distance problem - both focus on distance. Here, distance can be thought of as a simple two point configuration. Questions similar to the Erdos distinct distance problem and the Falconer distance problem can also be posed for more complicated patterns such as triangles, which can be viewed as three point configurations. In this talk I will go through some of the history of such point configuration questions and end with some recent results, for instance on triangles.