[rootusrootus]

If you want some empathy with the guy whose code you are reviewing, go pull up some of your own code from a few months or a year ago. Do a mock code review on it.

Maybe everyone else only writes good code, but this works for me every time. Even after over 30 years coding, I still have no problem seeing how imperfect the code is that I wrote as recently as last year.

And don't ever make it personal, anyway. Adopt a neutral tone, phrase comments abstractly as how they relate to team goals, how the code might be made clearer, etc. Don't accuse, don't belittle, don't try to look smarter than you are. And try to recognize the difference between the stuff that actually matters, the things which will actually be a headache down the road, and the pointless details that are just not how you'd have chosen to code something.