The natural evolution of a poker player is to play to obvious in the beginning. Like when they flop very strong, they usually go for a big donk bet instead of letting the preflop raiser hang himself. Then after a while however most people tend to go in the opposite direction and slowplay to much. And I guess, its all about the feeling, that it sucks, when we have a very strong hand and dont get paid. But as you already found it, it sucks a whole lot more, when we let our opponent draw out of us for cheap and then pay them off.
So the first condition for even considering a slowplay is, that we are unlikely to get drawn out on. This is usually the case if we flop or turn a boat or better. So in those situations a slowplay can be considered. It can also be considered, if we flop a set on a very dry board like A82 rainbow. On such a board slowplaying top set should be our default play, because its difficult for our opponents to have anything good enough to pay us off, if we go bet, bet, bet.
We should be way less likely to slowplay middle or bottom set on A82 rainbow though, because when we have those hands, people can have a lot of top pair, and we want them to put in as many chips as possible. If we are not the preflop aggressor, it can still be ok to just call a flop C-bet though, because if we raise, we cant really represent any draws. So to a good opponent check-raising A82 rainbow might make our range a bit to face up as being always two pair or a set.
Whereas if the board is something like QJ4 2-tone, and we have 44 or QJ, then we should absolutely check-raise the flop and hope, they will stack off a hand like an overpair or top pair, because they think, we are semi-bluffing with a draw. Or that they have a draw themselfes and will choose to pay us off to see the next card. I hope, this little guide to slowplaying was usefull to OP or others