What range of hands does this villain 3 bet preflop? I'm guessing that it is a darned strong range. This is the question that needs to go into every poker decision, and you need to think this much more often than "if I do X or Y, the villains will own me with Z". Once you know the villain's range in this spot, your actions become much more clear. Since most live players trying to play well have a very tight 3 betting range, there aren't many hands to think about. If your villain only 3 bets JJ+, AK. he only has 27 combos. Of those, we have the following:

12 combos you crush -- JJ, QQ
1 combo that has you basically dead -- KK
6 combos against which you have 5 outs -- AA
8 combos that have you with 3 outs -- AK, AKs

You didn't mention if you have a BDFD...

So against my proposed range, you'd be silly to raise at any point. You could let QQ or JJ off the hook if he's a good enough player to value bet three times with only one over card. He gets to own you if he chooses with TPTK or better.

You didn't think of any of this stuff, but you're worried about 8/16 players bluffing you? A) don't tell anyone you folded top pair if you ever do B) they're 8/16 players and won't notice. Your mistake in the hand had nothing to do with hurting your image. It had to do with poker fundamentals. All you had to say when you folded was "It is hard to bluff a guy with the nuts" and he'd probably show you his hand.

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If we were playing online shorthanded, this hand is completely different. You might have a villain with a 10%-20% three betting range. You could then raise that villain on this dry flop hoping he'd be suspicious that you correctly recognized that this dry flop is hard to hit. Against a very good player, you'd also worry that you can'r represent a lot on this flop and that your raising range is unbalanced. Against that very good player, you could then worry about image and being bluff raised on the turn. Still, we get a ton of value from an A high or a hand like 44 that calls us down. In that spot, the flop raise is good. We could also wonder about getting raised on the turn on a blank, our image, and how high up in our range KT is.

Doug is wicked smart.

I agree with Leo. A morning old guy regular just 3-bet you PF. You're looking for the exit ramp or a cheap showdown.

x/c flop, x/c turn, x/c river. Pray he has QQ.

A passive old man is absolutely going to b/c flop and raise the turn with AA/KK/AK. That's the standard play. For them. And us, against most villains (except spewtards).

That's not even a passive 3-betting range. Never mind super passive. Me thinks you need to retune your defaults. Unless you play in a much looser, much more aggressive typical game.

x/c flop, x/c turn gets you to the river for one SB less than x/r flop, b/f river. It gives you a chance to peel the river. And gives villain a chance to barrell off with JJ/QQ. You win more this way when you're ahead or suck out on the river. And that compensates you for when you lose more when you're WB. Plus, you can always x/f the river if Villain isn't betting anything you beat.

That's not in a bag of tricks. It's the bullet in the chamber.