No one's claiming to have discovered secret sexism hidden deep in the OP's soul. Whatever the intent, the effect of these words is to assume a male audience and

No one's claiming to have discovered secret sexism hidden deep in the OP's soul. Whatever the intent, the effect of these words is to assume a male audience and make women feel unwelcome. Maybe this effect seems like a secret because most guys are used to being the default audience. As a non-straight male, I can promise you it's jarring to read a comment and realize "this wasn't written for me". (it's not threatening or offensive, at least to me; I'm used to being in the minority and pretty secure about belonging in the tech world. But it's still very noticeable in a way that I think a lot of guys don't realize.) Anyway, we certainly have no right to expect total tense consistency in forum posts, though HN has historically had a higher writing-quality standard than most. But the second person in particular has the effect of assuming that the reader can empathize with a particular experience, and it's worth realizing that this can be off-putting when that experience excludes a sizeable fraction of your audience. It's not a criminal mistake. But it's worth avoiding, and easy to avoid as long as your mental picture of HN readership includes a few women.